Literacy and development; 1970 - UNESCOunesdoc.unesco.org/images/0003/000300/030008eo.pdf · After dealing in the present chapter with popular views of ... schools and teachers

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Literacy and development

International Education Year 1970

Literacy and development#

by H. M. Phillips

Unesco

Published in 1970 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Place de Fontenoy, 75 Paris-7e Printed by Arts Graphiques Coop Suisse

8 Unesco 1970 Prinied in Switzerland ED.70/D.59/A

Preface

The present booklet is one of the publications issued every year on World Literacy Day. The subject selected for this year, which is International Education Year, was Literacy and Development. This we feel is particularly opportune considering that the Second Devel- opment Decade is about to begin.

The achievements of the First Development Decade were uneven. Some were very positive; others disappointing. The effort to eradicate world illiteracy must be considered one of the dis- appointments since there were actually more illiterate adults at the end of the decade than at the beginning, despite the unprecedentedly rapid growth of primary education in the 1950s and 1960s and a new focusing of world attention on the value of education as a factor in economic progress. The main reasons for the failure to obtain better results were the high rates of population growth in earlier years, and the fact that the resources devoted by governments and industry to out-of-school education of youth and adults have been inadequate.

It is not easy to decide whether priority should be given to the formal school education of children or the out-of-school education of youth and adults. There is a natural tendency to favour the former but there are a number of areas of economic and social development whose future depends on whether a sufficiently large number of adults are educated so as to respond to development needs. This applies, for example, to the necessity of checking over-rapid population expansion and conserving the balance of man’s physical environment, and to the raising of agricultural output. In such areas the education of adults is paramount and time is pressing.

The education of adults has many facets, and the concept of lifelong continuing education is gradually replacing that of education limited to the school years: adult literacy work must be

viewed in this new perspective. However, progress in translating this concept into reality is bound to take time.

The present publication concentrates on the massive illiteracy of adults and youth with which the world is still afflicted despite modern scientific progress. It approaches the problem from an economic and social standpoint and is designed to direct attention to the grave problem of illiteracy at all stages and levels of development policy. There is, as will be seen, no easy solution. Economic and social factors and issues of human rights are closely intertwined. More intensive action by employers in industry and agriculture (whether individuals or corporations), by development planning and financing agencies, as well as by international agencies and non- governmental organizations is essential.

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Contents

How ordinary people value literacy : motivations to literacy and its attainment 9

Literacy and economic growth 23

Literacy and agricultural and industrial productivity 39

Three appeals J3

1 How ordinary people value literacy: motivations to literacy and its attainment

The success achieved in landing men on the moon has thrown into relief the old question as to why man is not able to achieve similar progress in solving his social and human problems. Is physical engineering so much more simple than social engineering? The situation is particularly paradoxical as applied to literacy. Owing to economic disparities and historical causes one might expect to find at the time of the moon landing that many millions of the world’s population were illiterate; but is 810 million a reasonable or tolerable figure? H o w much human dissatisfaction does this add up to? H o w many geniuses are being lost to mankind, applying ordinary ratios of numbers of geniuses in total populations? What is the economic loss resulting from some 810 million being unable to read, write and do simple arithmetic? What is the social and political status of these people? H o w can they escape from illiteracy? Are they, in any event, moti- vated to do so? Is literacy really an economic and social gain; if so, why are they not made literate?

Man’s researches in the social and human sciences have not been such as to permit him to have ready answers to these questions. Onlv 2. sinall fragment of the world’s research effort has been devoted to the study of literacy as a factor in economic and social development. Much of what is said in the pages which follow could have been said with more precision, or with different emphasis, if there existed a thorough corpus of scientific knowledge on this subject.

The disciplines of social research, however, are now starting to give the matter more attention and what they have to say is discussed in the chapters which follow. In human affairs, however, action is not only influenced by science and reason. It also has its roots in another kind of knowledge, which is ‘common sense’, i.e. what mnqt yesple feel from experience is true. Common sense is

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H o w ordinary people value literacy

sometimes wrong. At the same time the importance of common sense should never be underestimated, and this is why the point of entry chosen in this first chapter is what ordinary people think about the value of literacy.

After dealing in the present chapter with popular views of literacy as an instrument of personal development and a means of achieving human rights and political participation, the following chapters discuss what economists think about it in relation to a country’s economic growth, and what its influence is at the level of the firm or farm.

The concern in this brochure is with the so-called ‘underdeveloped’ or ‘developing’ countries, where most of the world’s population live, where economic and social development is limited, including many countries where nation-building following decolonization is still taking place. It is in those areas that the 810 million illiterate people live. While many human ideas and aspirations are the same everywhere, others are dependent on the surrounding living conditions and economic opportunities. The latter is especially the case with aspirations and motivations which would lead to the expenditure of considerable time and effort by the individual to achieve them, as is the case of literacy. In poor environments people are kept busy in order just to subsist. Spare-time activities, even when time is heavy on their hands, are often hindered by undernourishment, bad health and apathy.

The motivation to literacy in the developing countries is shown at its strongest in the desire of parents for their children to enjoy elementary education. In most low-income countries only just over half of the school-age children become enrolled, owing to lack of schools and teachers. Many leave school with little more than the ability to read and write, because of the high rate of drop-out and the inadequacy of teaching, and a number do not retain their literacy, because of environmental conditions. However, it is a common sight in such countries to see children who cannot find places standing every morning in front of the school in the impossible hope they might be admitted, and to see parents assembling before Ministry of Education offices in the hope of getting places for their children.

The motivation of parents towards their children’s education in Africa was well illustrated in a paper by Kyale Mwenda, Chief Education Officer in the Ministry of Education, Kenya, prepared for a conference on education, employment and rural development, held

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in Kenya (the Kericho Conference) in 1968. H e wrote: ‘Access to education is perhaps the biggest issue in Kenya’s domestic politics. Kenyans are avid for more education, both for themselves and their children. If evidence of this is needed one has only to note that there were in 1966 some 20,000 children in unaided secondary schools each costing their parents probably at least twenty pounds a year in fees as well as a share of the cost of erecting such school^.'^ Further, in relation to a survey in Kenya of the villager’s desire for literacy, he adds, ‘A comparison between Table I and Table II2 shows that the villagers have more desire for their children’s education than for themselves. They believe that literacy brings more benefit (a better life, a better income and a better job) to their children than to themselves. This way of thinking prevents them from going to literacy classes themselves and they say, “It’s better you think about the children, don’t worry about us, think about the children, etc.’”

Although the motivation of people to make their children literate is clear and widespread, the attitudes of adults to making themselves literate are more complex, as the above extract indicates. A survey conducted in Iran obtained from heads of families in a rural area of heavy illiteracy their opinion about the value of literacy. The results were as shown in Table 1.

Among the 21 per cent ‘other answers’ were the following: ‘for learning prayers’, ‘for not being deceived’, ‘for taking an official job’, ‘because it is an order of the government’, and ‘for the sake of the project teachers’. Among the negative answers there were: ‘we have no time’, ‘literacy is not necessary’. The negative answers were only 5 per cent of the positive answers, but they merit attention and this aspect will be taken up later. The emphasis given to better living and to the value of literacy in itself (Questions 1, 2 and 3) account for 66 per cent of the answers, and the purely economic aspects, better income and better job, for about 8 per cent. It would seem that the village had a strong moral and cultural bias towards literacy, rather than an economic impulsion.3

Similar motivationsto lkeicy were illustratedby the results of a survey sponsored by Unicef in Morocco dealing with the attitudes

1.

2. In: Sheffield, op. cit. 3.

See : James Sheffield, Education, Employment and Rural Development, Nairobi, East African Publishing House, 1967.

This area in Iran later became the site of a UNDP/Unesco Experimental Literacy Project.

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Table 1 Reasons given by heads of families in a rural area of Iran for the necessity of literacy1

Answer Number of families Percentage*

1. For a better living 2. Illiterates are blind 3. Literacy is good 4. For a better income 5. For a better job 6. For being more respectable 7. Negative and other answers

TOTAL

56 20 19 6 6 4

30

141 -

39.03 14.18 13.47 4.25 4.25 3.65 21.27

100 1.

2.

Baseline Community Survey, Dezful Rural Area, Iran, prepared by A. Ghasemi, Teheran, 1968. Figures add up to more than 100, owing to rounding.

and opinions of y0uth.l Among a number of significant statements made during the interviews, one respondent who felt deeply about the matter said: ‘School has come to tell the working man I will make your work eternal; I shall transmit it from generation to generation, through books and monuments. All this I shall engrave and accumulate together with other thdughts, from epoch to epoch, regardless of time.’ Another said, ‘To m e school is the God of the human and the source of the soul’s nobleness. . . its mission is the most difficult of all.’

These sentiments among the youth surveyed were accompanied by complaints of the distance of schools from homes and the lack of books and reading material as well as the insufficient number of schools. Among the replies quoted in the survey the following statement was recorded: ‘When one knows how to read, one feels the master of one’s own destiny.’ Very significant in this same sense is the remark made by a phosphate miner to Charles Maguerez when he met him some time after he had been through a literacy and vocational training course, ‘thinking back about his past and the training he had had, he made this brief and eloquent statement: before it was as though I were not alive.. .’.2

The motivation to literacy is also for the pleasure of reading, as indicated in a study of youth in the rural communities in Kenya: ‘Reading is clearly popular for its own sake and most boys mention

1. 2.

Study undertaken by Unicef (unpublished). Charles Maguerez, L a Promotion Technique du Travailleur Analphabète, p. 141, Pans, Editions Eyrolles, 1966.

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reading as part of their daily way of life. The most popular books are stories which convey excitement. Special mention was made of Chka the Zulu, Xhosa Folk Tales and books on Kikuyu folklore. Simply written thrillers are also very popular, but many boys will try to read any sort of book they can get hold of. Newspapers are very scarce but are avidly read when they can be procured.’ There is also, it would appear, pleasure and prestige to be gained from pretending to be literate even if one is not. The story is told that a firm making ballpoint pens received an order from a country with heavy illiteracy for a large number of tops of pens. The firm queried the request. Had a mistake been made? Not at all. The pens were wanted by people who could not write but wanted to have the tops of the pens showing in their breast pockets.

The prestige aspect of literacy is illustrated in the following statement by the rapporteur of the conference on adult literacy held at the Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria, in 1968:1 ‘A few months ago, my Nigerian co-worker and I were holding a vernacular literacy campaign in an Eggon village. Between the teaching sessions we challenged a group of young adult men who were attending sessions with an attitude of detached disinterest in learning to read. My co- worker told them that they were just like donkeys because they were illiterate. This accusation created a sense of shame, which resulted in a felt need, and in their commencing learning to read. The incentives to become literate are not always those of wanting to use literacy as a tool, but often those of prestige. However, once he becomes literate, the individual becomes receptive to modern ideas, change and progress. The people must be inspired from within, resulting in an eager response to a call to improve rural living and farming standards.’

The reason why literacy has a high social and personal value in low-income groups is because of its relative scarcity. While the literates are not necessarily the leaders or the innovators or the richest people in the local community, unless, as we shall see later, other factors come into play, they have special social functions of trust, such as reading other people’s mail for them and writing their letters. The latter aspect is vividly illustrated in remarks made by A. M. Ricketts, missionary at the Ahmadu Bello University conference : ‘Two weeks ago as I was cycling along a bush path from one village to another, a

1. Conference on Adult Literacy and Development in Africa of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria, 28 to 31 October 1968.

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young married man stopped m e and asked m e to read to him what was written on a sheet of paper that had been given to him, as he couldn’t read and didn’t know the contents. I read it and I told him that it was a summons from the local court to appear at the court-room the following market day, as his wife was suing him for divorce. It was a pathetic scene. Illiteracy is a serious problem in these fast-changing times, for the individual, the home, the community, and the State.’ The role of literacy in protecting people from humiliation and distress was put very succinctly and forcefully in a statement issued in 1920 by the Perm Gubernia Extraordinary Committee of the U.S.S.R. for the Elimination of Illiteracy: ‘An illiterate person has hundreds of enemies : epidemics , hunger, disorder, humiliation .’

What has been written so far would seem to be reason for optimism. If there is all this value placed on literacy and a deep motivation towards it, surely it is easy to attack the problem of eradication of illiteracy? Unfortunately there are some important caveats which must be made at once in respect of such optimism. To value something highly is not the same as being willing or able to attain it. People who value literacy as such highly may be eager to enrol for the purpose of attaining literacy. But experience shows that very many drop out owing to the pressure of their environmental problems, although others apply an extraordinary amount of effort. Some approach literacy in a magical rather than a functional way, and are disap- pointed that the magic does not work quickly enough. In general, literacy programmes are only effective in the environment of the developing countries if there are economic and social motivations and if there are sufficient literature and reading time and facilities available in the communities in which the illiterates live.

Much depends on the cultural and religious values prevailing in the community. For instance, the answers given in the Iranian study quoted above insisting upon ‘better living’ rather than upon the economic gain may be religious in origin, resulting from reverence for the Koran. Reverence for the written word is not however necessarily an impulsion to become literate, and the Moslem miner cited above who said, ‘before it was as though I were not alive.. .’, was the case of a man whose literacy training had found him a superior and more secure economic situation as well as the capacity to read and write. Thus motivation, while important, is a necessary but not sufficient condition for becoming literate. The illiterate can be led to the fountain of knowledge but he cannot be forced to drink if he does

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How ordinary people value literacy

not want to. Equally the fountain must in fact slake his thirst if he is to return to it frequently.

The difficulties of maintaining the initial motivation to literacy can be seen from failures which have occurred in various adult literacy projects. A study in India by Mushtaq Ahmed brought out that of a sample of 1,314 adults who were awarded certificates in 1955-56 for successful completion of adult literacy courses, only 40.7 per cent could, after about a year, read with comprehension a test passage which was geared to the standard of the fourth grade of primary schools.1 A case study2 in an Indian village showed that ‘one in three literates does not read any books. Only 10 per cent of the literates are readers in the modest sense of having read four or more books in their lifetime’. A Government of Maharashtra survey3 showed that following adult literacy classes 43.9 per cent of participants retained literacy, 38 per cent stood in need for some refresher training, and 18.1 per cent relapsed into illiteracy. A Tunisian study* demonstrated that only 1.5 per cent of the adults who started on the adult literacy programme were in fact able to complete three years of instruction and achieve the level of simple literacy, that is, ability to understand simple sentences composed of most frequently used words. Almost 50 per cent of the participants did not retain the minimal literacy they acquired after one year of instruction.

When, however, literacy is functional and work-oriented, as in the case of the UNDP/Unesco Experimental Programme, it has been found that the drop-out rate is very low. In the Iran project, for instance, it is as low as 5 per cent. Experience has shown that if a class is well organized it attracts a large number of participants and tends to raise the demand for functional literacy training. Indeed the question of drop-ins has had to be faced in some projects.

Once the functional approach to literacy is accepted as that most likely to succeed, both in preventing drop-out and in securing the retention of literacy, it must be noted that the conception of literacy itself as reading, writing and arithmetic needs extension. There are

1.

2.

5.

4.

Materialsfor New Literates, N e w Delhi, Research Training and Production Centre, 1958. Reading Interests and Habits of Village People: A Study of Village Mukhmel- pur in Delhi, N e w Delhi, National Institute of Education, 1962. Government of India, Report on Gram Shikshan Mohim of Maharashtra 1969. John Simmons, ‘Towards on Evaluation of Adult Education in a Bevel- oping Country’, unpublished report to Unesco.

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other kinds of basic apprehension similar to literacy which people may not possess, although they can read or write. One is the ability to distinguish and formulate images. Charles Maguerez, in his study already quoted from above, L a Promotion Technique du Travailleur Analphabète, draws attention to the inability of a substantial proportion of Moroccan workers of a big petrol company in the Sahara who were literate and semi-literate to identify correctly a series of pictures and designs even though they related to their ordinary daily life and surrounding tools and animals. Another illustration of this problem is the statement of a teacher in Kenya that a class of thirty in a Nairobi primary school ‘once produced a respectable lot of essays on savannah grasslands, and was then quite unable to pick out a picture of such country from a set of photographs showing different types of terrain’.l Other forms of basic literacy important for employment on development projects and in factories are the sense of time and the ability to arrange ideas in sequence and to handle simple tools.

Thus a strong motivation to literacy cannot in itself be taken to mean that literacy will automatically contribute to productivity unless accompanied by other measures. In a study by the Centre for the Study of Education in Changing Societies (Amsterdam), J. D. Hergnen writes as follows of research on this subject undertaken in Mwanza District, Kenya: ‘The results of research done in this field suggest that the better-educated farmers take the lead in introducing improved husbandry practices. It is equally apparent that from pure literacy teaching hardly any results in the field of increased productivity can be expected.’ A similar view is expressed in a study undertaken for Unesco by the International Social Science Council on the role of education in enlarging the exchange economy in Middle Africa: ‘. . . no economic problem in Africa’, the study states, ‘can be solved merely by changes in the educational system. Edu- cational backwardness is so intimately tied up with economic backwardness that only an integrated development scheme can succeed in improving educational standards. ’2

The UNDP/Unesco Experimental Programme is an attempt to integrate literacy with functional work-oriented training and thereby into the economic development process. Another motivational and educational dilemma it attempts to resolve is that of how to give

1. 2.

Conference on Adult Literacy.. . Zaria, Nigeria, op. cit. M. Blaug, The Role of Education in Enlarging the Ezchange Economy in Middle Africa: The English-speaking Countries, Paris, Unesco, 1967.

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mature people an education in reading and writing suitable for their needs and not based on that normally provided for children. The Unesco Guide for the Preparation of Experimental Literacy Projects states : ‘Literacy campaigns all over the world too often presented the depressing picture of adults of mature experience ranged in rows at cramped wooden desks, struggling to read childish stories that have no possible relevance to their lives or interests, while a young teacher on the platform treats them very much as he would treat their children. No wonder positive results have so seldom been achieved; no wonder there has been so much preoccupation with drop-out and lack of motivation. In fact it is surprising that adults have been prepared at all to submit themselves to this process and to persist in trying to learn in spite of such unsuitable methods and media.’

Parallel with economic growth, development requires action to improve the social and human conditions prevailing in the developing countries. These in turn react on the economic mechanism by pro- viding the necessary popular participation and incentives without which nation-wide development cannot be generated and sustained. A Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) document1 states : ‘Experience increasingly shows that lack of widespread popular support has been one of the cardinal reasons for delay and frustration in the implementation of national development plans. It is probably no exaggeration to say that in most Asian countries the great bulk of the public is no more than dimly conscious that a national development plan exists, and that of those citizens who are really aware of the plan, only a minority are able to find much personal meaning or appeal in it.’ The Government of India has adopted a basic policy of utilizing all the media of communication, especially literacy, to incorporate an ever-growing number of villages into a commitment to their development plans. That literacy is recognized as a basis of political responsibility is also clear from the past legislation of various countries which limits the right to vote to literates. In some countries (e.g. Thailand) the literacy rates of whole provinces have in the past been taken into account in considering whether the provinces should be represented in the various organs of governments. The prestige in which literacy is held is linked undoubtedly to its influence on political status and greater enjoyment of human rights.

1. Provisional Indicative World Plan for Agricultural Development; A Synthesis and Analysis of Factors relevant to World, Regional and National Agricul- tural Deuelopment, Rome, FAO, 1970.

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At the level of industrial relations in the factories the impact of literacy emerges in a study made in two textile factories in Bombay by the University of Bombay, sponsored by Unesco but not yet published.l It was shown that the literate workers defended their rights as workers and were more active in seeking better conditions than the illiterates and that this was regarded as an obstacle to productivity by a number of supervisors. On the other hand the study also found that literate workers were also more co-operative and had a greater sense of conscientiousness. The general experience is that literacy exercises a valuable social and political role in facilitating employer-worker relations and aiding the establishment and operation of trade unions and co-operative and other social institutions concerned with raising the living levels of the population.

The role of literacy in achieving greater freedom for individual cultural groups is also a positive one. This is illustrated by a statement made by an experienced missionary at the Ahmadu Bello University conference on adult literacy in Nigeria : ‘A few years ago many of the literate young Eggon people despised their own language, and didn’t like speaking it. They thought that speaking English, rather than Eggon, gave them greater prestige. But now that literature has been produced in their own language, the schoolchildren and educated adults who had this dangerous attitude towards their own heritage have changed their outlook. They are now proud of their own language, and no longer belittle their heritage. One of our contacts who is employed by the State with our help translated the State Governor’s speech, which resulted in the printing of a Hausa/ Eggon digest of his speech. The publications issued so far have had an impact on the attitude of even the illiterate, who also had a sense of insecurity within the traditional Eggon concepts. That which bound them together was beginning to lose its meaning. But now their respect for their own traditions has been revived. It is only as respect for one’s own heritage is developed that one gains the personalsecurity which can provide the basis for one’s healthy acceptance of wider and more encompassing traditions and responsibilities.’z

‘In a number of countries where several or many languages are spoken-Ethiopia, Iran, Sudan and Tanzania, for example-literacy

1. Relationship between Literacy and Economic Productivity of Industrial Workers in Bombay : A Sociological Analysis. Unpublished draft report, sponsored by Unesco, by the University of Bombay. Conference on Adult Literacy.. . Zaria, Nigeria, op. cit. 2.

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is taught exclusively in the official national language. In Guinea, on the other hand, the governmental policy is to make people literate in their own languages as a first stage. Ghana reports literacy programmes in ten Ianguages, Kenya in six, Niger in five. Togo, with a territory of 56,000 square kilometres and a population of under 2 million, has thirty African languages and distinct dialects, of which two are used in government literacy programmes. In Algeria, both Arabic and French are used and learners may choose in which language they wish to become literate, although in rural areas the courses are primarily given in Arabic. In Singapore, a vast programme of language teaching has been launched, which serves both literate and illiterate adults. Bolivia’s Education Code stipulates that literacy is to be achieved through the vernacular language and Indian languages are used as a first step to learning Spanish.’l A number of countries have taken legislative action to compel participation in literacy programmes.

Although the mass media have fulfilled a number of the functions formerly carried out through literacy the official and legal basis of interventions by the State in the daily life of the workers is necessarily based on written texts. This is illustrated in a simple way by some of the replies in a Unicef study in Morocco of 290 boys between 14 and 18 years of age of whom about one-fifth were completely illiterate, just over one-third between literacy and illiteracy and just over two-fifths literate. Some of the answers were: ‘Going to school is necessary. If someone brings you a letter you will know how to read it correctly. I, for instance, have the receipt of the terbib (rural tax) and I know what it says. I cannot be fooled and cannot be made to pay more than what I have to by law’, and, ‘There are those who are ignorant and those who are learned; the first remain poor, the others become rich, the first obey, the others command.’ Literacy is also a vital adjunct to programmes of land reform: if the reforms are not properly understood and the rights given in them not utilized they tend to lapse into disuse.

Another socially important feature of literacy is its impact on the family, i.e. its utility in spreading new ideas and techniques not only of an economic nature but also in respect to the home and the family’s way of living their domestic life. An impact of this kind which is particularly important for national economic and social development

1. Unesco, Literacy 1967-1 969. Progress Achieved in Literacy throughout the World, p. 76, Paris, 1970.

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is that on family planning. This is illustrated by Tables 2, 3 and 4, taken from the study, referred to above, made in Bombay textile factories by the University of Bombay.

In the same factoriesj illiterate workers in the sample were asked what were the disadvantages they felt in the home as a result of being illiterate. Their replies are shown in Table 4.

Table 2 Distribution of respondents according to their knowledge of family planning and their own literacy statuts (percentages)

Literacy status

No Merely heard Has specific knowledge about it knowledge Total

Illiterate Literate

Over-all

29.70 59.41 10.89 100.00 50.68 31.20 100.00 18.12

22.80 54.20 23.00 100.00 - - -

Table 3 Distribution of respondents according to whether they believe in family planning or not and respondents' literacy status (percentages)

Literacy 'Cannot Not status 'Yes' 'No' specify' mentioned Total

Illiterate 59.40 15.35 24.26 0.99 100.00 0.33 100.00 Literate 71.81 12.42 15.44

Over-all 66.80 13.60 19.00 0.60 100.00 - - - -

Table 4 The disadvantages of illiteracy at home

Illiterate workers' Disadvantages views (percentages)'

Dependence on others 89.26 D o not understand money matters 9.39 Cannot teach children 4.70 Feel inferior 3.35 Delay or difficulty in getting things done 0.67 1. Out of 202 illiterate respondents, 28 felt there are not any disadvantages of

illiteracy and another 25 could not specify.

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It has been estimated that an individual living in a modern society receives one hundred times as much information as the ordinary individual in a developing country and 60 per cent of this information is communicated by reading.l It has also been shown that there is a significant correlation among countries between on the one hand the percentage of literacy, and on the other hand per capita income, industrialization, political participation, and the recep- tion of information media.2 Lerne3 has stressed the essential role played by literacy in extending communications, since the material received through mass communications, especially radio, is incomplete and lacking in continuity unless supported by literacy. Indeed there is a tendency for social tensions to develop if the mass media generate aspirations while basic literacy, the key to active participation in political life, is absent.

In recent years, and particularly as part of the concepts under- lying the United Nations Development Decade programmes, the concept of development based primarily on economic growth has been replaced by an approach which integrates economic and social development and covers a wide set of indicators. Literacy rates are particularly important among such indicators not only because of the interrelationship between literacy on the one hand and economic growth, popular participation in government and human rights on the other, but also by reason of its indirect effects. Economic man is both a producer and a consumer and it is not sufficient only to or- ganize production. Consumer behaviour is greatly influenced by patterns of personal behaviour. Since literacy improves the health habits of people, their sense of time and the value they ascribe to saving, it creates a propensity to buy durable products rather than to seek immediate short-term satisfactions. The changes in consumer patterns influence production patterns.

The discussion so far can be summed up as follows: literacy as such has high prestige, especially in societies where it tends to be scarce, and is a consumption good as well as an economic asset. It is regarded by ordinary people as a key to greater independence and protection of the individual, and the full attainment of human rights, 1. R. L. Meier, ‘The Measurement of Social Change’, Proceedings of the

Western Joint Computer Conference, San Francisco, 1959. 2. H. H. Golden, Literacy and Social Change in Underdeveloped Countries,

1955 (Rural Society XX). 3. D. Lemer, The Passing of Traditional Society, Glencoe, Ill., The Free

Press, 1958.

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to fuller life, and to higher income. This is not however the same as saying that these motivations will necessarily be sustained to prevent drop-out and lack of retention of literacy or that it is possible in the conditions of the developing countries to use motivations to literacy alone as an impetus to economic and social development. Parallel action has to be taken to link literacy with development and in particular with employment. Other elements in the economic environment have to be activated in order to eradicate illiteracy. Literacy is also valued for its own sake and for the political and social gains it brings, and it affects consumers as well as producers and changes consumption patterns. If it were possible to make everyone literate without any contribution to production at all, mankind would still be richer by 810 million greater individual satisfactions. Un- fortunately this cannot be done without cost-and cost means for- going other items of consumption. All that can be said before analys- ing the economics of literacy is that where choices can be made there is a heavy bias in favour of investment in education (of which literacy is part and to which it is basic) as a factor in production as compared with physical factors, other things being equal, because of its consumption value and because of its impact on human rights and political participation.

2 Literacy and economic growth

The previous chapter has shown that the basic value ascribed to literacy is high, but that attainment is usually poor unless there are economic incentives and a productive use for literacy. This in turn depends on the economic environment ; we therefore have to look at the causes of illiteracy in the context of the economic environment, and the perspectives for its eradication in the context of the development possibilities of that environment. The 810 million people of the world who are not literate are located mostly in the vast rural areas of the low-income countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, though illiteracy also exists in their urban centres, especially among the rural immigrants attracted from the countryside. The size of the problem can be seen in Table 5.

Table J World population and literacy estimates for 1970

Number of adults (15f) (millions)

Adult Rate of reduction Total illiteracy rate

population Literates Illiterates (percentage)

If the 1950/60 rate of reduction has been maintained 2 335 1525 810 34.8

reduction has increased one and a half times 2 335 1575 760 32.6

of reduction has doubled 2335 1625 710 30.5

If the 1950/60 rate of

If the 1950/60 rate

23

Literacy and economic growth

Most of the countries with heavy illiteracy are dual economies, i.e. they consist of a small modern sector containing the capital city and some urban areas and a large rural hinterland largely untouched by modern economic progress. Only one-tenth or less of their production comes from manufacturing. The rest comes mostly from agriculture, but a great deal of their agricultural activity is in the form of subsistence farming, i.e. the population produces an output for its own use and for simple exchange transactions and some tax-paying, but does not participate to any real extent in the money economy. Sur- pluses tend to be used for barter or for ceremonies and family gifts rather than being treated as capital and reinvested; when money is needed it is often obtained by credits from money-lenders at extremely high rates of interest. There are of course scattered larger enterprises, plantations, irrigation projects, mines, etc., but the broad picture is one of mainly illiterate villagers cultivating small plots with obsolete technologies. Capital and knowledge, and institutions favourable to development, are in very short supply and predominantly the situation is one of an undernourished and therefore rather apathetic population in a poor environment where health conditions are low and where mortality rates are high.l Birth-rates are also high.

Countries of this kind fall within the general description of ‘developing countries’ in the parlance of the United Nations. A rough economic definition of developing countries would be those which have an annual gross product (total of goods and services)2 valued at less than $5003 per person. The developing countries can for con- venience, be divided into those with under $100 per capita; those with between $100 and $200 per capita; those in the range of $200 to $300; and those above.

There are twenty-eight countries (1966 figures) with a per capita income of less than $100. India and Indonesia are included in the list, though the over-all figures mask considerable varieties of

i.

2.

3.

24

It is estimated that 350-500 million of the world’s population is short of calories but that some 1,500 million suffer from undernutrition. One- third of the deaths in the developing countries occur before the age of 6, a proportion not reached in the Western world before the age of 60. In 1969 FAO announced that world food production had, in 1968 at least, kept up with population growth; but this meant little progress for the 350-500 million people at present underfed. This may be expressed as GNP (Gross National Product), GDP (Gross Domestic Product) or National Income according to whether foreign transfers and certain other factors are taken into account. Dollars referred to in this text are United States dollars throughout.


conditions because of the sheer size of those countries. While dual economies as defined above, they have (as does Nigeria the most populous African country) a somewhat higher percentage of manufacturing than the other countries. The least endowed of the countries in this group were estimated to have in 1966 90 per cent and over of their population illiterate, and India, Nigeria and Indonesia to have illiteracy rates of 72, 47 and 57 per cent respectively.

Another twelve countries with per capita GNP of between $100 and $150 were estimated to have illiteracy rates ranging from over 25 to 30 per cent up to 90 per cent. Pakistan was the largest country in the group with its 110 million people, $116 per capita income, and 80 per cent illiteracy rate. The countries with between $200 and $300 per capita GNP numbered twenty-five. They were estimated to have illiteracy rates ranging from 40 to 60 per cent, including populous Brazil with $273 per capita GNP and 40 per cent illiteracy.

In the group of countries between $300 and $500 per capita GNP some had substantial illiteracy rates, e.g. Nicaragua (50 per cent) and Gabon (87 per cent). As per capita GNP, and especially the manufacturing component of GNP, increases, the conditions of insufficient development, illiteracy and poverty tend to diminish, though countries which owe their high per capita product to single resources like oil do not necessarily have a developed economic and social infrastructure.

The educational reason for illiteracy is the absence of primary schools at the time when the present adult population were children and the lack of adult-education facilities. The economic reason is lack of resources. Educationally, the long-term solution must depend on the growth of primary schooling and adult education. In most of the countries concerned, however, the enrolment of the present child population is still far from complete for the primary-school age group. It varies on the average from below 20 to above 80 per cent of the age group, with an average of a little higher than 50 per cent, so that new additions to adult illiteracy are coming forward every year. A number of countries with large populations will have to wait until well into the 1990s before they have facilities for full enrolment at the primarylevel: though they are unlikely bythen to have eliminated drop-out, owing to poor environmental conditions. The fallacy of relying upon ambitious programmes of primary education to eradicate illiteracy is shown by some examples given in a paper prepared by the

25


Unesco Regional Office for Education in Asia.’ A number of examples are given of villages where large numbers of the population who had attended school for three or four years had all relapsed into illiteracy. ‘Although they have learned to read,’ the paper states, ‘many literate people continue to behave as illiterates because their society and the behaviour of its members is still pre-literate.’

Even beyond the 199Os, a twenty-year period will have to elapse before the whole of the median of the labour force (say the 35-year-old age group) will have had some measure of primary schooling. The reasons these dates cannot be advanced are both educational and economic. It takes years to establish the facilities and train the teachers even when finance is available, which is not often the case.

This interlock between primary education for children and^ the over-all adult illiteracy rate causes a serious educational, economic and moral dilemma: whether to give priority to the education of children or to the shorter-term, cheaper and more immediate results of literacy for adults and youth. Julius Nyerere, President of the Republic of Tanzania, in a declaration to Parliament during the inauguration of the first five-year development plan in 1964 took a position on this question when he said: ‘First w e must educate adults. Our children will not have an impact on our economic development for five, ten, or even twenty years.’ Most governments, however, have consciously or unconsciously chosen differently, since expenditure on adult education is an extremely small percentage of expenditure on primary education practically everywhere (including Tanzania). The relative neglect of youth and adult education is becoming increasingly challenged because of the more immediate economic value of adult education provided it is integrated into development programmes and projects-a proviso which we must now examine.

The economic prospects of developing countries depend on a diminution of the pressure of population on resources, a greater supply of external capital and skills than are at present forthcoming, a better social infrastructure and means of communication and better

1. Unesco Regional Office for Education in Asia, ‘Literacy and Develop- ment. Introduction to Functional Literacy’, paper prepared for Study Yisit and Seminar- Work-oriented Adult Literacy Pilot Project in Iran, Isfahan-Dezful, 27 October to 9 November 2969, p. 11, Bangkok, 21 Sep- tember 1969 (doc. ED/Conf./52/1/!2).

26


education so as to break the vicious circle of low production and low consumption. The future of the problem of illiteracy is inextricably linked with these prospects. Further, in almost all the countries concerned, the main economic solution to illiteracy has to be found in improving the conditions of the rural areas, since it is in agriculture that the mass of the population must find its economic outlet for many years. Is there much scope and possibility in agriculture to achieve this?

The most authoritative answer to this question is to be found in the FAO Indicative World Plan for Agricultural Development. The picture it discloses is depressing. For many years to come, even if population growth is substantially lowered and more capital and technology flows to them, developing countries will as a whole have a vast population living in poverty. The plan states: ‘The over- whelming fact of the development world is the number of people in it, and the staggering rate at which these numbers are increasing. Secondly, the greater part are rural and likely to remain so, the majority live at a poverty level of subsistence, most are illiterate or very poorly educated, and around 50 per cent of the total populations of these countries are under 20 years of age.’

Agricultural development will of course take place but in general it is likely to consist of an expansion of the market sector of the dual economy countries,l i.e. the areas adjacent to towns are particularly endowed for agricultural production and for rural industries. Several decades will pass before the process of development can change substantially the economic situation of the less endowed areas where most of the illiterate population live. The plan expresses the situation graphically as follows : ‘Thus farmer and farm populations

1. Provisional Indicative World Plan for Agricultural Development, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 19. The very rapid growth of the monetized demand for agricultural products coming from within the developing countries (especially in Asia and Africa) may be regarded as the yeast working to transform the farming community in a great variety of ways. But this transformation will not in most cases reach the whole nation within the Indicative World Plan period, whether in Africa, Asia or tropical Latin America. There will be created therefore a growing dualism within the agricultural community in many countries. Farmers close enough to the cities, or fortunately located transport-wise, or in communities favoured by natural conditions of irrigation, will reap the benefit of the pull of the local market. Unfortunately it is inevitable that during the period up to 1985 subsistence or semi-subsistence pockets or even zones will remain. In these areas neither levels of living nor the type of economy may change much until they can be integrated into the national economy.

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Table 6 Agricultural and non-agricultural population1

Agricultural Non-agricultural population (millions) population (millions)

1962 1985 1962 1985 Region

Asia and Far East 583 880 250 591 Latin America 99 144 127 289 Africa south of Sahara 165 250 36 107 Near East andnorth-west Africa 88 114 47 140

All regions 935 1388 460 1127

i. Provisional Indicative World Food Plan for Agricultural Developrnenl, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 23.

in developing countries are “dammed up” in an agricultural reservoir just as a dam in the physical sense holds back water.’l As regards the employment outlook the plan states : ‘The problem of employment looms as far more intractable than that of food supply. With it can come not only human misery but social unrest and political instability.’ The situation can be seen from the population estimates in Table 6.

In considering these estimates it is necessary to note that the non-agricultural population, which is the group having the highest rate of increase, mostly live in towns and that, as is pointed out in the paper referred to above (see page 26),2 literacy is basically an urban phenomenon. Thus the estimates give cause for optimism because of the process of urbanization, but cause for pessimism be-

l. Prouisional Indicative World Plan for Ap’cultural Development, op. cit.,

2. Unesco Regional Office for Education in Asia, ‘Literacy and Develop- ment.. .’, op. cit. The paper points out that close to a rural area of high illiteracy selected for a pilot study an ancient city was unearthed which 3,000 years ago had from the evidence of the excavations a substantial degree of literacy. The paper states : ‘In origin, the act of reading is an urban act. On the other hand, for thousands of years, and even today, in rural societies made up of villages often containing only a few hundred individuals, oral communication and face-to-face contact are sufficient for the multifarious relations of daily life. That is why illiteracy today is still first and foremost a rural occurrence. In a number of Asian rural societies, however, writing is by no means unknown. O n the contrary, writing has existed and continues to exist as an institution personified by the scribe, whom the illiterate person uses as a go-between to com- municate with others at a distance. Unlike town-dwellers, villagers do not feel the need to be able to read and write, because their everyday life and the conduct of their family affairs do not involve this need.’

Vol. I, p. 22.

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cause the underemployed rural population which is prone to illiteracy will also have increased. Further the growth of the means of communication which serve the same objectives as literacy, such as the cinema, television, etc., as well as literacy itself, will tend to be concentrated in towns, thus exacerbating the social dualism of the developing countries concerned.

W e can therefore dismiss as unlikely the possibility that mass illiteracy could be eliminated over a short period. Heavy illiteracy and poverty is likely to continue in the rural areas of many developing countries even though the world may experience new marvels of technology going even beyond man's landing on the moon. This does not mean that extremely useful progress in literacy involving over the period hundreds of millions of people cannot be made if suitable action programmes are launched, but it does mean that a selective rather than a mass approach to eradicating illiteracy is the only practical one.

Such a selective approach will have to be directed in the first place to where the economic conditions are most likely to favour the reduction of illiteracy, i.e. in towns, in developing parts of the rural economy, and in areas of the traditional or subsistence sector which are nearest to coming over into the modern sector. It should be possible progressively to extend the modern sector as the missing elements needed for modernization, including literacy itself, can be identified and supplied. The elements missing locally in order to spark the development process may be the construction of a dam or of roadways, they may be irrigation or fertilizers or land reform or credit facilities. The problem may be population pressure on resources, distance from market, poor land. Or it may be that the obstacle is that the value system and the traditional forms of social organization and motivations in the community are unreceptive to the idea of development. It is likely to be a combination of these factors. In all of these elements adult education, and especially work- oriented literacy carefully planned as part of specific public works programmes and development projects, is an important component.

The FAO Indicative Plan recognizes this in stating: 'In Asia, and in all other regions, the dynamics of the population analysis suggests that really major public works programmes in rural areas should be given very high priority over the Indicative Plan Period. The underutilization of human resources is by all odds the greatest waste of all in the developing regions. It will also be important to take

29


maximum advantage of the possibilities of village industries. The scope for expansion of village industries may be large in view of the high postulates in the Indicative Plan Period for production of agricultural commodities which require processing.’ Success or failure will depend on the care with which the selection of projects is made and the missing elements other than literacy made available.

An example of what one country thinks possible is contained in a Malawi Government report as follows : ‘By improving the farming techniques the general level of food production and cash earnings normally found on the Lilongwe Plateau as a whole could be doubled. This does not consider other enterprises or sources of income. A farmer cultivating 4-6 acres may be able to provide the staple maize for his family and obtain a cash income of some 10-20 pounds. If he were to follow the techniques he might expect a cash income in the order of 30-50 pounds per year. If achieved on a large scale, not only individual farm families and village communities would benefit from such progress, but likewise the entire country.’

Opinions of development economists in this sense are also relevant, as follows : ‘Expenditure on bringing new knowledge to peasant farmers is probably the most productive investment which can be made in any of the poorer developing countries’ (W. Arthur Lewis). And, ‘In most developing countries it is probably true that there is more to be gained by the introduction of better methods into agriculture than there is over the whole of the rest of the economy put together’ (W. B. Reddaway). The bringing of new knowledge to peasant farmers can take place through different media but literacy is one of the most powerful of these media as will be indicated in the next chapter.

The point to which we are brought, therefore, is that despite the pessimistic outlook for the eradication of mass illiteracy in the near future there is a sound basis for a selective and progressive approach to spreading literacy based on its use as a component in the development process. The extent of what can be achieved will depend upon literacy’s role in that process and it is necessary to review what is known on that subject, first in the rest of this chapter at the macro-economic level, and then in the following chapter at the level of the firm, farm or local community.

Literacy is a form of education and since it is basic to all levels of education it shares in the economic returns of education at all levels. The value of literacy is not only the difference between

30


illiteracy and literacy; it contains also a share of the value of all educational achievements which could not have been attained without literacy-at the secondary, technical and higher levels, as well as the primary level of education. It is relevant therefore to recall the three main approaches favoured by different economists in studying the economic gains accruing from education in order to ascertain the amount of resources to be devoted to the educational sector. The first is to assume that there is a reasonably fixed relationship between the amount of education and the amount of production based on past experience, and to project these requirements. A variation of this approach is a cross-country comparison of literacy sates correlated with a set of development indicators. This approach which is by reference to the past can give broad guide-lines as to norms. The second approach is to study the different levels of income attained by people according to their level of education. When the other variables can be held more or less constant it is argued that the additional income attained is due to the additional education. The third approach is to derive educational needs from manpower fore- casts which are in turn derived from economic projections.

As regards the first method, there has been an interesting study by Bowman and Anderson1 of patterns of literacy and development both on a cross-country basis and historically. They show that there are ‘positive correlations between the level or spread of education and economic levels but that these connections are loose ones’. The authors state that ‘economic gains associated with growth of a literate minority may level off quickly, the economy remaining on a low plateau, until education has built up to a point at which widespread transformation is possible. There is perhaps an educational threshold in the extension of primary schooling that must be reached before further extension of such schooling can be brought into economic play’.

Their figures show that a figure of between 30 per cent and 50 per cent literacy can be regarded as a threshold rate for economic development, no major industrial power having ever achieved steady economic growth with a literacy rate of less than around 40 per cent. However, some countries have achieved higher rates than 40 per cent literacy but remain underdeveloped, leading to the conclusion that 30-50 per cent literacy is a necessary but not sufficient condition for economic growth.

1. See: Readings in the Economics of Education, p. 115-55, Paris, Unesco, 1968.

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They state that ‘the data strongly suggests that rising literacy alone contributes very little to development over the range from 30 to 70 per cent of literacy’. On the other hand ‘among the twenty- four countries with per capita income exceeding $500, only three had literacy rates under 90 per cent’.

It may be argued, and the authors point this out, that ‘wher- ever incomes reach $500 or better the demand for education as a consumer good establishes the high literacy. However, additional considerations support the conclusion that whatever the consumption component may be, literacy of something like 90 or 95 per cent is necessary to realize incomes over $500, barring exceptional circum- stances. A complex industrial society depends upon many kinds of mass-communication media, and without near universal literacy these channels can function only imperfectly. . .’ .

Data available since Bowman and Anderson wrote, show that whereas between 1950 and 1965 world production as a whole doubled, the countries below the $300 per capita level (i.e. those with heavy illiteracy) did less well, and those below the $150 level (i. e. those with the heaviest illiteracy) did worst. On the other hand the middle-income group of countries, with $300 to $1,200 per capita income (i. e. those with more developed educational systems and higher literacy rates) performed remarkably well. It is not possible, however, to be precise about cause and effect, since while literacy may contribute to economic growth, an increase of literacy is itself also a result of economic growth. As we saw in Chapter 1, literacy is a consumer good as well as a productive factor.

On the matter of country comparisons the historical point is sometimes made that both England and France around the middle of the last century had very much higher incomes per capita than the developing countries of today, but yet had half of their population illiterate. This was the time when Disraeli was describing England as consisting of two worlds, the rich and the poor. Today economic development is heavily dependent on an infrastructure of technology and means of communication for which literacy is indispensable. Further it has to be recognized that France and England which were then highly industrialized compared with the rest of the world, had a high comparative advantage of world trade, pos- sessed large empires and had had a long history of capital accumu- lation in conditions when wages were low and the population’s level of living poor. It seems apparent that the relative slowness of the


growth of public education held back the speed of the continuing industrial growth of these countries relative to the new ones like Germany, the United States of America and Japan, which joined the technological and industrial leaders at the beginning of the twen- tieth century with educational advantages.

The histories of Japan and Denmark are particularly good examples of how a priority given to universal primary education in advance of other countries brought exceptionally high economic returns. The Danish folk schools set up considerably before comparable institutions were established elsewhere enabled Denmark to change its economic structure from that of a traditional agricultural economy to one with modern dairy farming. This came at the time when the great wheat fields of the West were being opened up in the United States and Canada and when European agriculture was being under- cut by these vast new sources of supply. Similarly Japan with the arrival of the Meiji era in 1867 transformed itself over the next forty years from a semi-feudal society with much of its population illiterate to a modern industrial economy highly dependent on the skills of its labour force, since it has few natural resources.

The Meiji Government’s early ideal of education was stated as follows in the National Chancellor’s Proclamation of 1872 (the fifth year of the Meiji régime which changed Japan from its previous traditional conditions to those of a modern State) : ‘Efforts should be made that there will be no uneducated home in the village, and no uneducated persons in the home.’l

The indicator which was used by Bowman and Anderson for the comparison with literacy rates was that of per capita income. Today there is a trend to replace this simple indicator by the inclusion of other economic and social indicators which broaden the picture of what development really means. This work has not yet reached the point at which a composite development index is available for each country that takes into account factors such as income distribution and similar items which vitally determine the level of living of the population as a whole.

It was indicated above that a second method of ascertaining the economic value of any particular form of the investment in education is by estimating the cost of the creation of the necessary educational

1. See : Koichi Emi, ‘Economic Development and Educational Investment in the Meiji Era’, in: Readings in &e Economics of Education, op.cit., p. 94-106.

a 35


skills and comparing it with the results obtained in monetary terms by the additional education received. The monetary cost can be obtained by estimating the earnings of the person who has been educated to the given level and comparing them with the sum spent on education discounted in order to equalize the time factor. This produces a rate of return on a given educational investment.

In applying this method to literacy it is necessary to take into account that while there are various definitions of literacy which will be discussed later (especially functional and work-oriented literacy which go beyond the three Rs) reading and writing skills in themselves are at the root of all formal education. In terms therefore of the economic return of investment in education, literacy occupies a position of indispensable infrastructure. Thus, to speak of secondary education yielding higher economic returns than primary education to produce literacy is artificial. It is artificial in the sense that secondary education is not possible (except for occasional geniuses like John Stuart Mill) unless the pupil has already passed through a number of years of primary instruction. In so far as literacy is indispensable to all levels of education, the rate of return, like that of the fourth wheel on a four-wheel car, is equivalent to the return on the total investment. Despite this difficulty it is possible to produce significant comparisons of educational levels, especially between formal education and no education. A major study of this kind, which occupies a classical position in this field of study and must be quoted, is that published in 1924 by S. G. Strumilin, the Soviet econometrician who described the results of his survey as follows: ‘. . . the rudi- mentary instruction gained in one year of primary education increases a worker’s productivity on the average by 30 per cent, whereas the improvements in the qualifications of illiterate workers and the increase in their output, resulting from a similar period of apprenticeship at a factory, are only 12 to 16 per cent a year. The improvement in qualification resulting from one year’s education at school is, on the average, 2.6 times greater than that resulting from one year’s apprenticeship.’l Where of course it is possible to combine literacy training with vocational training as in the UNDP/Unesco Experimental Programme, the returns are correspondingly greater.

The results of these studies became incorporated into Soviet

S. G. Strumilin, ‘The Economics of Education in the U.S.S.R.’, in: H. M. Phillips (ed.), Economic and Social Aspects of Educational Planning, p. 71, Paris, Unesco, 196.E.

1.

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Table 7 Relative income of illiterate and literate labour

Average annual Level of education Age period earnings (bolivares)

Illiterate Farm labourer

Urban labourer

Primary school

Secondary school

13-1 8 1 O00 19-65 1500 13-22 2 500 23-65 3 750 13-22 5 O00 23-65 7 500 18-32 12000 33-65 18 O00

economic planning in the years that followed. In 1929 an official article in Planovoe Khozyaistvo stated: ‘A long time ago w e had already arrived at the conclusion that the expenditures of the State budget to raise the cultural level of the country ought to be considered along with the expenditures on technical reconstruction of production as capital expenditures, and as equal in terms of their importance to our economy.’l The cost-benefit of introducing four years of compulsory schooling was calculated in 1954 by Strumilin as follows: ‘The expenditure for the whole 10 years exceeds 1,600 million roubles. Of course, this is an enormous figure. But the effect of this expenditure, increasing the capital value of the working labour force for the country, at the same time should be evaluated at 69,000 million roubles, i.e. 43 times greater.’2

Although these studies by Strumilin related to the situation in the Soviet Union around the early 1920s and the results cannot automatically be applied to conditions today in other parts of the world with different social systems, there were present in the Soviet Union at that time many of the economic and social characteristics of the low-income countries of today, including high illiteracy rates.

An example of a similar study in modern conditions is that by Carl Shoup on education and earning power in Venezuela. His study produced the results shown in Table 7.

This table indicates how non-literate labour whether on the land or in towns earns considerably less than literate labour. If

1. 2.

Planovoe Khozyaistvo, NO. 7, 1929. S. G. Strumilin, ‘The Economic Significance of National Education’, in: Readings in the Economics of Education, op. cit., p. 423.

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income is interpreted as a rough measure of productivity, increases in literacy will clearly raise national income provided the costs of the training do not exceed the benefit.

The costs of literacy programmes are not difficult to calculate and can be reduced by using existing premises during periods when they are vacant and by volunteer teachers. They consist of payments for the capital and materials employed, and the salaries of the teachers, to which must be added the cost of the time forgone by both the staff and the students (assuming they could have been gain- fully employed elsewhere), and the opportunity costs of possible alternative uses of the capital and materials used. It is the assessment of benefits which presents the most difficult task. Not only are there many indirect effects of an important economic nature but there are also major social and political benefits from a high literacy rate in a country’s population. Some of these benefits only materialize if other favourable factors are present. For instance, one benefit flowing from literacy is greater self-dependence leading to increased occupational and geographical mobility. This is normally an economic asset to a country. But, in the present conditions of most of the developing countries, people in the rural areas, as soon as they receive education, tend to move to the towns, which are seldom ready to receive them with jobs and adequate accommodation. This tends to denude agriculture of needed educated talent and at the same time add to the pressure of people seeking ‘white-collar’ or other jobs deemed appropriate for the educated. For the full benefits to materialize, a new kind of education and new types of literacy training better related to development needs are needed to replace the traditional types of programme.

Practically all attempts to show the rate of return on education assume a reasonable supply of employment opportunities. Unfor- tunately this assumption is very questionable in the light of the future of the developing countries on present trends. Actually, unemployment in the developing countries averages about 20 per cent, a figure which is increased by seasonal unemployment and general underemployment. Further, employment in paid jobs when schooling or literacy can be utilized is not rising pari passu with the output of the school systems or economic growth. This situation varies in intensity from country to country but is sufficiently general to cause alarm. In the case of Africa, for instance, an authoritative report states : ‘Nigeria’s modern sector can absorb no more than one-

36


third of those who would aspire to find employment within it. In Tanzania, only about 23,000 jobs in modern-sector employment are available in addition to 6,000 places annually in secondary schools, for each 250,000 age group entering the labour force. And, in Kenya, the annual output of primary-school leavers is 150,000 youngsters for whom there are only 15,000 places each year in secondary schools and about 40,000 jobs arising in the economy.’l

Thus the recognition is again forced on us that progress in solving the problem of illiteracy is part of the problem of economic and social development and employment creation at the local level as well as an educational problem; and that the attack on the two fronts must be integrated. To what use then can macro-economic conclusions of the kind discussed in this chapter be put? Their utility is in influencing the allocations of resources made for the reduction of illiteracy. The largest relevant allocation is the budget line for primary education for the purpose of making children literate. This is governed by the political pressures from parents on ministries of education which, as we saw in Chapter 1, is extremely strong. The difficulty is not that most primary-education systems in the developing countries are not receiving high enough allocations, but that they have low cost efficiency and high drop-out rates which contract the effect of provision of educational facilities. High allocations to primary education are not by themselves a sufficient tool to secure the over- all economic benefits accruing from literacy, but they are the indispensable base.

The second kind of allocation is the traditional form of budgetary expenditure on adult education as such, which may be spent both on literates and illiterates. The amount of such allocations to adult education varies greatly by country, but in general it is very small.

The third type of allocation is that directed to specific literacy programmes, financed at the level of the central budget, either of the traditional kind or the new work-oriented form of functional literacy.

Other forms of allocation affected at the macro-economic level are those of large corporations and banking institutions and of other agencies, national and international, concerned with development programmes. These are also at present very small.

If, as would seem indicated, the allocations to literacy need to

See: Guy Hunter, ‘Manpower and Education Needs in the Traditional Sector’ (paper prepared for the Symposium on Manpower Aspects of Educational Planning, Paris, M a y 1966).

1.

37


be increased in order that the full macro-economic benefits can be obtained, to where should they be directed? The answer on the basis of the reasoning set out earlier would be to those areas and projects which would in the first place receive the greatest benefit because the other components of development are present. This would mean urban industries which still have illiterate-worker and village industries in developing agricultural regions ; it would also mean developing agricultural regions themselves, and areas which are on the mar- gin of the subsistence or traditional economy and which could be pushed over without too much difficulty into the modern sector. Finally it would mean selected projects in the interior of the traditional economy, in agriculture, industry, or mining, where development projects are possible, and which may also act as centres of radiation to a wider area.

The present chapter can be summed up as follows. The eradication of illiteracy is tied in the first place to the completion of the growth of universal primary education and the reduction of drop- out rates in order to stop it at the source, i.e. among the up-and- coming population. This may take another decade or two though it will take longer to make the necessary reduction of drop-out rates. At the adult level the problem will be more prolonged. This is because most illiterates are in areas where the pace of development is slow and population growth fast, especially in agriculture, on which most developing countries have to rely for many years for much of their income. Industry, although it is growing at a relatively fast pace, can only cover a limited proportion of the labour force of those countries for many years to come. The macro-indices show that progress in literacy and economic growth generally go side by side, though cause and effect is difficult to determine. Literacy, however, is clearly a necessary, although not a sufficient, accompaniment of higher levels of per capita income. While such conclusions can influence allocations at the national level, and should do so, more evidence is required at the local level. In the end it is the people who work out the employment and training arrangements in new projects, and who review those in old, who have to be convinced that the expenditures involved in making workers literate give such a return as to make them worth while.

In discussing this aspect we must first explore the most basic aspect of literacy in relation to development: what is its actual impact at the level of the firm and farm?

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3 Literacy and agricultural and industrial productivity

The productivity of literate workers compared with non-literate workers is not too difficult to determine inside a factory. The main items in respect of which workers can be compared are : (a) dexterity in skilled or semi-skilled tasks; (b) speed and quantity of output, especially in the case of piece-work; (c) learning aptitude and desire for self-betterment ; (d) conscientiousness about maintaining machines in good order and ability to do so; (e) not wasting raw materials and causing machines and assembly lines to be blocked, and noticing defects ; (f) good time-keeping and avoidance of absenteeism ; (g) better health and energy because of ability to plan way of life, food intake, and avoidance of debilitating diseases ; (h) knowledge and practice of safety measures to reduce accidents ; (i) good relations with the other people working in the factory, and team spirit.

In agriculture the above items also apply when there is mechanization or larger types of farms and co-operatives, but a number of other factors are also relevant in the case of the individual farmer or smallholder. Among these are : ability to read instructions in the use of fertilizers and new types of seeds, and to calculate the quantities involved ; capacity to make use of agricultural credit facilities and to deal in the monetary market rather than to rely on barter; habits of saving and accumulating capital to expand output. In com- merce, many local traders in areas of illiteracy cannot read and write and seem to manage with beads and person-to-person communications ; when their activities take on a larger dimension, the keeping of accounts and the ability to read specifications for and to order merchandise becomes indispensable.

Evidence that literate workers are more productive than non- literate exists, both at the common-sense level and in scientific studies. At the common-sense level evidence is found in the fact that

39

Literacy and agricultural and industrial productivity

when employers open a factory they normally take on literate workers first and only engage the illiterates when the supply of the former is exhausted. This practice is, however, varied where there is a substantial wage differential between the two groups, where the work does not appear to require literacy, and where the non-literate workers happen to be manually more adept, stronger or more suited to the particular task. Despite the general preference of employers for literate workers, there is, therefore, no certainty that they will take the trouble to set up literacy classes for illiterate workers, since they may feel that the latter’s performance is adequate and may not wish to give higher pay. Strictly, employers should assess the costs and benefits of literacy versus illiteracy in their factories. In practice their recruitment officers work on a more rough-and-ready basis and do not take the time necessary to arrive at precise scientific conclusions which usually involve special studies. Even in the case of scientific studies of the performance of literates versus non-literates it is always difficult to evaluate the differences due to the factors of individual intelligence, strength and health.

There is no simple over-all rule that employers could be asked to apply to all cases. Indeed it is necessary not to fall into the error of encouraging discrimination against illiterate workers : they are not responsible for the fact that there may be no facilities available to make them literate. The best course is to concentrate on the economic returns in the form of increased labour production to be obtained by employers through the reduction of illiteracy. The reduction of illiteracy in the labour force calls for both individual and co-operative projects among employers, since the usual practice of creaming off the existing literate workers from the labour market rather than setting up training schemes is bad for the economic situation and in the end bad for the individual employers. The reluctance of employers in many developing countries to take up training responsibilities beyond their own immediate interest applies both to local industries and also firms from the older industrial countries in respect of their branches abroad, although there are companies which are noted for a broader social and economic approach. This tendency can to some extent be counteracted if the more progressive employers promote a greater spread of information and of examples as to the value of literacy, and if they help to set up arrangements by which small employers can share the costs involved with each other or with the State.

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Unesco itself has taken important initiatives to make employers and others responsible for development decisions aware of the contribution the reduction of illiteracy can make to productivity. A Round Table of bankers, businessmen and economists sponsored by Unesco was held in 1969 in Rome under the auspices of the Bank of Italy. Among the conclusions unanimously agreed by the financial leaders and industrialists present was the recommendation that instead of being treated as a residual factor in the planning and financing of development, literacy training should be assessed as a standard component of agricultural and cultural plans in areas of illiteracy ; and that the formulation by employers of work-oriented literacy programmes should become part of their standard business practices.

The meeting went on to recommend that ‘the working out by employers of practical means of optimizing the literacy component in training and factory and agricultural life should be tackled by the dissemination of existing data and examples (e.g. the experience of the French firms in Morocco and Algeria). Handbooks could be prepared for personnel managers of various types of projects. Seminars might also be organized among employers in particular industries. The collaboration of unions and co-operatives would be important, as would IL0 and FAO collaboration. The subject should be treated from the standpoint of (1) business practice, labour productivity, personnel management, (2) educational techniques and media, (5) financial allocation with the budget of the enterprise’. The method of conviction by examples depends, of course, upon the examples, and up to the present relatively few studies have been made in the field, which is one where much more research should be organized. There are, however, a number of interesting and con- vincing conclusions which emerge from various surveys and experiments and some of these are described below.

In the Bombay study, some of whose results have been given in Chapter 1, a comparison was made of the productivity of literate and illiterate workers in textile factories. Of fifty production supervisors who were interviewed ‘a majority of them were of the opinion that as compared to illiterate, literate workers were more competent in undertaking skilled jobs , and more skilful in handling complex machinery and undertaking moderate repairs’. They also thought that ‘literate workers had a better aptitude to learn new techniques of production and more initiative to take up training; literate workers

4 41


were in their view more “achievement oriented” than those who were illiterate’.

Another aspect to which the supervisors attached importance was that the workers who were literate had a much better attitude to taking care of the quality and avoiding the waste of raw material, a particularly important factor because the wastage in the process of production was high in the textile units studied. Further they remarked that literate workers could read literature on safety measures and that they exhibit more safety consciousness than their illiterate counterparts. The importance of industrial safety, it may be noted, is much greater than is generally appreciated, as can be seen from the statistics of the Indian Ministry of Labour, which show that in India 17.5 million workers are injured every year, an accident rate of 3.5 per cent of the labour force during the year, involving 100 deaths. About a quarter of the accidents are due to human lapses.

The results of the supervisors’ assessment over a range of seven factors contributing to productivity in the textile plant are summarized in Table 8.

Table 8 Evaluation of literate and illiterate workers

Literate Literate Illiterate Bases superior equal superior

Activity studied to illiterate to illiterate to literate

1. Optimum speed at work, handling complex machinery and skilled job 48 48 - -

moderate repairs 44 42 2 - 2. Adequate machine

maintenance and undertaking

3. Reporting production damages, machinery defects and raw material defects 38 36 - 2

4. Avoiding discussions while at work and avoiding waste of time by proper planning 40 20 12 8

co-operative behaviour 34 18 5 11

5. Good relations with supervisors, co-workers and

6. Learning aptitude, willingness for training and desire for higher status 46 46

7. Regularity of attendance and - -

knowledge of safety measures 46 35 11 -

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Table 9 Composite index of performance (figures in parentheses are percentages)

Low Average High Total

Illiterate trained 47 137 66 250

Literate trained 13 66 171 250 (18.8) (54.8) (26.4) (100)

(5.2) (26.4) (68.4) (100)

Table 10 Distribution according to total family income and literacy status (figures in parentheses are percentages)

Total family income (Npees) Illiterate Literate Total

- 150 and below 151-200 201-250 251-300 301-400

501 and above 401-500

TOTAL

24 (11.88) 61 (30.19) 67 (33.17) 25 (12.38) 16 (7.92) 6 (2.97) 3 (1.49) --

202 (100)

_ _ ~ ~ ~

21 (7.04) 45 (9) 80 (26.35) 141 (28.20) 95 (31.88) 162 (32.40) 43 (14.43) 68 (13.60) 36 (12.08) 52 (10.40) 16 (5.37) 22 (4.40)

298 (100) 500 (100) 10 (2) -- 7 (2.35) -___

The same study also enabled a composite index to be drawn up which evaluated the productivity of the literate and illiterate workers over the total range of the seven factors shown above. This is indicated in Table 9.

The relationship between illiteracy and earnings was demonstrated as in Table IO.

A further example of the effect of literacy in textile factories is available in an experiment which was conducted in 1968, as part of the World Literacy Programme organized by Unesco, in the Taj woollen miIl in Isfahan in Iran employing 25,000 workers. An adult literacy-education group was established within the factory and special transport was arranged to enable the workers in the group to attend in their own time at hours outside the regular shifts. The report of thc results of the experiment states: ‘Production errors, accidents, and absenteeism have decreased notably, and many other *.o.c!rXerr iri the factory have applied for admission to the new group.’

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The management of the factory, although they had been initially sceptical of the outcome of such an experiment, decided on the extension of the programme after studying the results and granted wage increases to all workers who successfully completed the course.

This experiment is an interesting demonstration of the combined vocational and literacy training approach. The project involved specially devised methods for this purpose. The report1 on the results of the experiment states : ‘Work-related skills and information were the starting-point for all group activities and the pedagogic requirements were subordinated to vocational priorities. The normal pro- gression-alphabet-syllables-words-was reversed to allow technical words to be used globally from the very outset of the technical discussion.’ The technical manager expressed himself as follows : ‘The classes have improved the work skills and attitudes of the workers. W e would like to have more new groups like this one. Even if some workers leave for other jobs [which was the case] we want to upgrade our labour force.’ Moreover the results showed that the achievement in literacy, as such, attained in the experiment was as great as that attained elsewhere in Iran by the use of traditional teaching methods.

In the case of the experiment in the Iranian factory just described the training was given at the factory outside normal working hours, which meant that there was no loss of current production. In the case of another experiment, however, which was one undertaken in Brazil (the Rio Doce Project-a micro-experiment in the Unesco World Literary Programme) the workers participated in the programme for half an hour a day during working hours and at full pay. The specific gains in productivity were listed by the supervisors as follows : ‘The workers make fewer errors because they can read the instructions ; there is less need for explanations, more punctuality, more conscientiousness, more general tidiness and increased interest and pride in performance.’ Moreover, it was found that, throughout the experiment, production at the factory remained the same in spite of the loss of 937 working hours. The experiment took place in particularly favourable conditions and only a small number of people were reached, but it demonstrated that the time and money spent on functional literacy was well spent in terms of increased productivity.

1. Work-oriented Adult Literacy Pilot Project, The Tuj Group. Brief Account of a Functional Literacy Experiment in a Textile Factory, Isfahan (Iran), Unesco, 1968/69.

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A further interesting experiment was organized in Algeria by Euroquip at the instance of the Ministery of Finance and Planning and Unesco. It investigated the effects of introducing a functional literacy programme into SERIIPAC, the national corporation producing farinaceous foods in Algeria which employs some 8,000 workers, most of whom are illiterate. The results showed in respect of the group of fifty workers who followed the programme ‘a clear progress regarding both their effective knowledge of milling vocab- ulary and their working behaviour (integration of their work in the process and an improved understanding of their usefulness)’.

Another example of importance concerns a rural industry, and this enables us to turn to literacy in the agricultural environment. Rural industries, as was seen in Chapter 2, can be very valuable fo- cuses of development favourable to the eradication of illiteracy. Near Bamako, the capital of Mali, a State farm employs about one hundred regular and several hundred seasonal workers on the growing of tomatoes which are canned in a neighbouring factory. Forty-five of the workers were selected for functional literacy classes for two hours a day combined with technical training for one hour a week, these periods being reckoned as work hours. The farm’s technical adviser regarded the results as showing conclusively that the cost of the literacy class (the payment of the teachers and the work time lost) was well compensated by the benefits : ‘Formerly the illiterate fore- men were unable to check and sign for material and deliver it correctly, or to receive written instructions. Afterwards they could keep very simple accounts, make out invoices and delivery orders, draw up check lists of the number of crates, weights of goods, etc. . . . The technical explanations given to them in the field were better and more rapidly assimilated. The whole working atmosphere at the farm was changed favourably. . . . The shortage of subordinate staff pos- sessing a minimum of training is one of the chief obstacles to the expansion of production ; for this reason, the farm’s manager and the technical adviser contemplate developing the functional literacy work; a new course is to be opened for those who were unable to attend the first, and a second cycle is to be organized for the most promising pupils with the aim of fitting them for greater responsibilities.’

In agriculture itself it is more difficult to measure the contribution of the individual literate worker as compared with the illiterate, except in the case of large-scale or mechanized farms. This is due to the length of time it takes for crops to mature and the difficulty

45


of distinguishing the individual’s contribution to group work. Many of the conclusions found from experiments in industry may, however, be expected to apply in agricultural enterprises involving numbers of workers and quantities of equipment. It is easier to measure changes in output due to literacy in the case of small and family farms. The small farmer is usually both employer and worker. H e is also his own entrepreneur, manager, accountant and stock- keeper. The impact of literacy on his production can cover the whole range of his capacities. Of special importance is the role of literacy in improving his sense of time, his ability to accumulate a certain amount of capital stock, to deal in the market and obtain credit, and his power to keep abreast of new techniques and to apply them effectively. Relevant in agriculture as in industry are studies made in Africa by Morgaut,l showing that literacy also increases productivity in tasks which have no direct relation with ability to write and read. This is explained by the general effect of literacy teaching upon the powers of perception, recent research by Ferenczi2 having also emphasized the importance on mental development of such factors.

It is argued by some agricultural economists, e. g. Hsieh,3 that illiteracy is not an obstacle to familiarizing farmers with new technology, as in the case of the new variety of seeds and methods of production introduced in recent years known as the ‘green revolution’. This view arises from the fact that a number of illiterates have successfully produced the new varieties through instructions based on other means of communication than the written word. There is no doubt of the importance of other media than literacy (e. g. verbal explanations and demonstrations extension workers, communications from farmer to farmer by initiation and personal contact, the use of films and radio forums and other methods of group instructions) and they are needed to complement literacy. These methods, however, tend to be more costly in time and teaching

1. IMPRESIT, ‘L’Apprentissage Professionnelle dans les Grands Chantiers de Génie Civil et ses Repercussions sur le Procédé de l’Alphabétisation du Pays’, European Round Table on the Integration of Literacy into Projects of Economic Development: The Contribution of Italian Enterprises, Turin, 22 to 24 April 1970 (AB/WP/3 F). V. Ferenczi, L a Perception de l’Espace Perceptif, Pans, Didier, 1966. S. C. Hsieh, The Effectiveness of Social Ezpenditures in Ceylon and West Malaysia, Bangkok, United Nations Asian Institute for Economic Development and Planning, 1969.

2. 3.

46


effort since they have to be repeated every time there are new devel- opments or corrections to be made in farming techniques, whereas a farmer once literate and retaining his literacy can draw on this asset for the rest of his life.

Moreover, the success of the ‘green revolution’ does not only depend upon the immediate ‘know-how’ required in order to have a larger crop in a shorter time because of the use of new seeds and cultivation methods. It also depends upon successfully overcoming what are known as the ‘second generation problems’ arising from the impact of the new type of production upon the surrounding economic and social environment. When output is increased and the development process is accelerated in rural surroundings, other changes in the employment situation follow. There is more time for off-farm work, the increased production has to be stored, transported, etc. A new stage of development is reached making new demands upon the educational resources of the local community. To stress the importance of literacy does not mean, as experiences have shown, that the simple establishing of rural education centres will automatically increase either productivity or the number of people who retain literacy throughout their lives. The other development agents have also to be at work. But it is clear that literacy as a method of communicating new techniques, whether in agriculture, in health or in the simple practices of the home which improve living levels, is a powerful and durable force if integrated in the development effort.

A balanced view of the role of literacy in agricultural productivity is contained in the following extract from the proceedings of the Kericho Conference referred to in Chapter 1 (see page 11) : ‘There seems little doubt that functional literacy, operating as one of the integral factors of agricultural improvement, should serve an extremely important need. Modern agriculture, even in its simplest aspects, requires the imparting of some technical knowledge for which the printed word serves a most useful purpose. The planting of new varieties of seed and the associated use of fertilizers or sprays for disease and pest control may well require simple printed instructions to supplement advice of extension workers. Simple records become essential when sales and purchases, and possibly credit, are involved in an increasingly sophisticated agriculture. The local co- operative will issue receipts for produce delivered. It becomes necessary to be able to understand weights and measures if the farmer is not to run the risk of being continually cheated. Thus there is, in

4.7


situations like these, not only a need for widespread literacy work but a demand by the community faced as it is by new situations and new needs.’

Research into the impact of literacy classes compared with other means of communication is not extensive but a project sponsored by Unesco in Costa Rica and in India and carried out by the universities of those countries and the University of Michigan showed that the functional literacy classes brough about ‘increases in both knowledge and adoption of agricultural and health innovations’.l On the other hand, the same study demonstrated that radio forums proved to be superior in India to the literacy reading method, though this was largely attributed to the fact that the illiterate workers participating in the literacy courses had to begin with relatively less modern attitudes and lower social status than those in the radio forums. The study also showed that animation training of village leaders was less effective than either radio forums or literacy classes, but this was attributed to inadequate techniques which had been used by animators in the villages. Literacy techniques were regarded as reliable and in this connexion the difficulties of organizing and maintaining the other media of communication have to be taken into account. A recent report2 on one of the more developed African countries found that 70 per cent of farmers interviewed on the subject of extension work reported that they had never seen an extension worker, and only 14 per cent had seen one during the half-year period preceding the interview. W e read also in an FAO report that ‘at “grass roots” levels, then, the picture is one of a great number of untrained agricultural advisers, supervised by a cadre of harried, lowly paid, par- tially trained technical assistants. Most have no transport other than a bicycle, and a substantial number cannot read the English in which extension recommendations are phrased. And these are the men to whom we expect local progressive farmers to look as “change agents”! However, just as there are deficiencies in the extension worker method so literacy, unless functional, can itself be ineffective as a development tool. This is illustrated by a further extract from the document already referred to in Chapter 2 above : ‘Although

The Impact of Communication on Rwal Development. An Investigation in Costa Rica and India, p. 125, Hyderabad, Unesco and the National Institute of Community Development, 1969. P. Mueller and K. H . Zevering, ‘Employment Promotion through Rural Development, a Pilot Project in Western Nigeria’, International Labour Review, Vol. 100, NO. 2, August 1969, p. 127.

1.

2.

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they have learnt to read, many literate people continue to behave as illiterates because their society and the behaviour of its members is still pre-literate. In a Mekong riparian country, bilateral agricultural extension experts found that although 53 per cent of the farmers had attained a relatively high level of literacy (equivalent to the third year of primary education) they made no use of the printed literature distributed to them. The farmers who knew how to read did not in fact read. Extension work had to be done orally, with all the risks inherent in the verbal transmission of often complex techniques. No farmer was able to remember a sequence of agricultural operations in its entirety. Out of ten or so successive operations, they only remembered three, or rarely four. Often the farmers reversed the order of operations, distorted the instructions given, or even invented them. These are the familiar distortions met with when an oral mes- sage is repeated, which could have been avoided by reading a reference text .’l

The important factor clearly is that literacy is an important development tool and everything depends upon how it is used. A number of social psychologists have indicated the role of literacy in creating motivation to development, e.g. Lernerz found that literate Turkish peasants had more modern attitudes and were more likely to become innovators in their village. A study in Thailand by Goldsen and Ralis2 reported that literate Thai villagers were more innovative than illiterates. Rahiniz showed in a Pakistan study that literacy was positively related to adoption of improved practices. Deutschmann, Mendez and Herzog2 found in a study of Guatemalan housewives in five villages that literate housewives knew more about and adopted more new food and drug practices than illiterates. Everett Rogers and Herzog also found positive correlations between literacy and innovativeness both in the home and in agriculture. It would no doubt also be possible to give examples when the correlation was not positive because of factors in the general economic social and cultural environment, as indicated in the case of the farmers in the Mekong Valley mentioned above.

The most impressive evidence sf productivity is always an actual increase in production or some material saving. These are often 1. Unesco Regional Office for Education in Asia, ‘Literacy and Develop-

ment.. .’, op. cit. 2. See : Everett Rogers and William Herzog, ‘Functional Literacy A m o n g

Colombian Peasants’, in : Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol.XIV, No. 2, January 1966, p. 190-203.

49


difficult to determine in agriculture as we saw, and inefficiencies due to illiteracy often do not come to light because there are no means of checking them. Where such checks are applied the results can be disturbing, as can be seen from the following example which showed how large losses in production could occur, owing to illiteracy: ‘In the province of Guilan, in north-west Iran, the agricultural services recommend rice growers, when sowing seed-nurseries, to use 34 kg of paddy seed to the hectare. The Guilan rice farmers who can apply that formula correctly are few and far between. Because they cannot do arithmetic, the great majority of farmers use much more than the prescribed quantity of seed. The Rice Office has calculated that every year for the province of Guilan alone, the ignorance of the rice growers costs 14,000 metric tons of paddy worth over 210 million rials in wasted seed.’l

Reluctance on the part of employers in industry to recognize and implement the value of literacy training in their factories has its counterpart in the attitudes of some authorities responsible for agriculture. In his contribution to a recent Workshop on Functional Literacy, Dr. S. N. Saraf, Director of the Bureau of Planning and Co-ordination of the Ministry of Education and Youth Services, India, stated: ‘One of the reasons why the functional literacy component has been treated as a very junior partner in this programme of development is because of the lack of appreciation in certain areas, on the part of some people in charge of the programme of farmers’ training, about the utility of functional literacy. They are a little unsure of the contribution of functional literacy. They observe that any time spent on the functional literacy programme will mean time taken away from the farmers’ training programme.’2

The value of literacy will be greatest whenever there are opportunities for the exercise of literacy skills in the daily functioning of the family at work and in the home. It is also particularly valuable in those occupations such as transport where invoices, accounting and paper work in general are indispensable. An example in the transport field was a four-month course organized at Oujia, by the Moroccan railways, on the completion of which twenty-eight out of

1.

2.

Unesco Regional Office for Education in Asia, ‘Literacy and Develop- ment’, op. cit., p. 17. S. N . Saraf, ‘Functional Literacy Component under Farmers’ Training and Functional Literacy Projects, India’, Workshop on Functional Literacy, Addis Ababa, 29 April to 12 M a y 1970 (FLW/Addis/2/Misc./SN. 22).

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thirty-seven workers were promoted to be ‘Chefs de Canton’ and had their salary increased by 20,000 francs a month. Similarly, of an area of Peru which was characterized by heavy illiteracy, Matos Mas found that the literates were centred around those functions which involved contact with more literate areas through communications systems. It will by seen therefore that literacy is able to spread as development pushes into the interior region of the developing countries, as communications increase and as the duality of the economics of these countries is gradually diminished.

W e may summarize this chapter as follows. The practice of employers is to take literate workers first, other things being equal. This is a practical indication that literate workers are more productive than illiterate. None the less most firms, particularly the smaller ones, have a substantial number of illiterates in their employment. On the whole they do little to make these workers literate and literacy projects inside factories are the exception rather than the rule. On the other hand, when such projects have been undertaken or exper- imented with, good results have occurred in increasing the workers’ productivity. This is shown by the examples which have been quoted. The reluctance of employers to set up literacy training projects for their employees is part of a general problem in developing countries of firms both local and foreign competing for the literate workers. It is in their own and in the nationalinterest that more projects should be started either by employers themselves or jointly or with assist- ance from outside as e.g. in the UNDP/Unesco Experimental Pro- gramme. The same considerations apply to agriculture where there is mechanization or a considerable number of workers on a farm, though changes in output are more difficult to measure. In the case of the small or family farm, the situation is clearer. Literacy can change the whole work procedure and psychology of the farmer as regards the use of new techniques, innovations, saving, use of credit, etc. It can also greatly help the woman in her home. All these values, however, attached to literacy usually only come into operation when the other factors which play a key role in development are also there ; e.g. it is useless for a farmer to be credit-minded unless there are credit institutions, or to be capable of exercising tenancy rights if there has not been land reform or to know how to plant new seed unless it is available for purchase. Similarly, literacy needs to be supported by other methods (extension workers, radio forums, etc.) and by supplies of reading material suited to the functional environment.

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4 Three appeals

Let us conclude with appeals to those who are able to give an answer to the question whether social engineering is so much more difficult than physical engineering.

Obviously the sector of society with which the greatest means lie for eliminating illiteracy is employers themselves. If lasting motivations for literacy and its successful acquisition depend upon literacy being functional and work-oriented, then it is to those who provide work that we must look for the highest proportion of effort for the eradication of illiteracy. This means that a special responsibility falls primarily on employers, but also on development agencies and financing organizations concerned with development projects which will create employment. These agencies and organizations, as well as industrial and agricultural enterprises of all kinds, should follow the exhortation made by representatives of the major industrial concerns, public utilities and undertakings active both within Europe and the developing countries, who met at the Turin round table :l ‘Convinced of the advantage of the approach to functional literacy programmes defined and studied by Unesco, the Round Table recommends its implementation in equipment operations or industrialization projects where the training of illiterate workers is necessary. This approach the Round Table recommends to enterprises operating not only in developed countries but in those countries where a high percentage of illiteracy, or an inadequate formation, impedes the efficiency of the available manpower’ (Recommendation I). If they can come to regard making provision for literacy projects in their enterprises as a normal part of investment, then a major achievement will have been made. The results of such an achievement will not only affect 1. Ewopean Round Table on the Integration of Literacy into Projects of Econ-

omic Development (Turin). . ., op. cit.

53

Three appeals

the situation in the next few years but will develop a pattern of thought and guide-lines which will lead progressively over the longer period to the elimination for practical purposes of illiteracy at the place of work.

Similarly, the appeal has to be made to those concerned with literacy in the home, especially education authorities and other forms of civic institutions whose resources allow them to undertake effective programmes. In this connexion, attention should be given to the growing unemployment among youth in the developing countries, deriving in part, but far from wholly, from their receiving no primary education, or education of a type which is unsuited to their economic environment and over-formalistic. In countries with narrow resources, governments should weigh carefully the advantages of work-oriented education for youth as compared with expansion of primary education for children of a type which is often ineffective as a tool for either their economic or their personal development in the society of which they are members. Greater attention should be given to women’s and girls’ education, since their influence in the home goes far beyond that of their home duties. Productivity of workers in industry and particularly in agriculture often has a direct relationship with the mother of the family, who if literate is able to introduce into the family’s way of life the new ways of thinking which, as we saw in Chapter 3, the ability to read and write tends to produce.

In addition to employers and development bodies, there is another group which must be appealed to in order to raise the resources which cannot be provided in the ordinary course by employers, development agencies and governments. This is the ever- growing group of ordinary people who wish to subscribe funds and volunteers who wish to work for world development as well as the affairs of their own countries. This applies to industrialists and employers and others in positions of influence both in respect of their immediate business functions and of their functions as ordinary world citizens, though they will also bring to the study of this problem the skills they exercise in their functions. Universities and research institutions concerned with development should also devote more research to the economic and productive aspects of literacy.

In a novel written in 1909, The Passionate Friends by H. G. Wells, the characters discuss the possibility of setting up an international organization concerned with a world-wide, common fund of ideas and knowledge in order to evoke a world-wide sense of human

54

Three appeals

solidarity based on the ‘great universals, science which has limitations neither of race or class, and which speaks to its own in every rank and nation, philosophy and literature which broaden sympathy and and banish prejudice’. H e was foreseeing in 1909 a sort of Unesco, but one which relied more on the support of industrialists and businessmen than Unesco’s programmes have hitherto. In the book, Gidding, an industrialist, becomes seized by the idea put forward by Stratton (a character very like Wells himself) of creating a world where everyone is literate and knowledge is distributed massively throughout the globe. The following piece occurs in Chapter IX: ‘To Gidding it was neither preposterous nor insufferably magnificent that we should set about a propaganda of all science, all knowledge, all philosophical and political ideas, round about the habitable globe. His mind began producing concrete projects as a firework being lit produces sparks, and soon he was “figuring out” the most colossal of printing and publishing projects, as a man might work out the par- ticulars for an alteration to his bathroom. It was so entirely natural to him, it was so entirely novel to me, to go on from the proposition that understanding was the primary need of humanity to the system- atic organization of free publishing, exhaustive discussion, intellectual stimulation. “Say, Stratton,” he said, after a conversation that had seemed to m e half fantasy, “let’s do it”.’

The appeal to those who control the future of industry and technology, as well as to those who are responsible for education arid training, must be to reflect on the problems which Stratton was talk- ing about to Gidding in our quotation from The Passionate Rriends and for a sufficient number of Giddings to rise up and say, ‘Stratton, let’s do it’.

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Literacy and development; 1970 - UNESCOunesdoc.unesco.org/images/0003/000300/030008eo.pdf · After dealing in the present chapter with popular views of ... schools and teachers