Illiteracy breeds economic incompetencies.

Outline

1. Introduction
2. Defining illiteracy
3. Types of illiteracy
A. Complete illiteracy
B. Functional illiteracy
4. Defining Economic incompetency
5. How illiteracy breeds economic incompetencies
A. At individual level
i) Illiterate individual get jobs which pay less
ii) Unemployment rate is higher among illiterate individuals
B. At Business level
i) The cost of fixing incorrect product
ii) Customers lost due to poor communication
iii) Lower technological skills
C. At national level
i) Slow growth of GDP
ii) Resourcefully rich states remain poor due to mismanagement—Case
study of Pakistan
6. Comparison among literate and illiterate countries and their impact on
economy
A. Highly literate countries enjoy high economic prosperity
B. Illiterate societies have negative attitude towards government policies
leading to economic inequalities
7. Causes of illiteracy
A. Cultural factors
B. Illiterate parents
C. Poverty—a vicious cycle
8. Recommendations
A. Awareness about the problem
B. Literacy programmes for all
C. Special emphasis on female education
9. Conclusion
 Raj was graduate from a top university. He was travelling by rail from Mumbai
to Jaipur. He came face to face with an old man. Raj was enjoying music. Out of
intrigue, the old man asked about the mobile phone. Raj explained all the features.
After a while, when old man asked Raj to help him read the newspaper as he was
having difficulty, Raj was dumb as he did not know how to read. Indeed, both were
illiterate. Maya Angelou said, “Elimination of illiteracy is as serious an issue to our
history as the abolition of slavery.” Illiteracy can exist at any stage in life. It hurts
nations, businesses and individuals and it eventually leads to economic
incompetence.

The United Nations defines illiteracy as the inability to read and write a simple
message in any language. It also means the actual or perceived state of being
uneducated or insufficiently educated. The social judgement is so powerfully built
into the term illiterate that scholars now generally use more neutral terms, such as
non-literate and pre-literate. Formerly, the term illiterate was used to describe
someone without book learning or a liberal education, even though such a person
could read in a vernacular language or handle accounts and correspondence.
However, the word also carried the connotation of ‘unpolished’, ‘ignorant’, or
‘inferior’, as in ‘the disadvantage of an illiterate education’

Illiteracy is of two types. The first one is “Complete Illiteracy”, which means
that a person is unable to read and write. According to UNESCO, a person is
complete illiterate who cannot understand to read and write a short simple statement
in his everyday life. In simple words, complete illiteracy means what we
comprehend from the word illiterate, which means that a person is unable to read
and write or cannot comprehend the meaning. When we say that a person is illiterate,
we generally mean complete illiteracy.

Functional illiteracy is the second type of illiteracy. According to UNESCO,

“A person is functionally illiterate who cannot engage in all those activities in which
literacy is required for effective functioning of his group and community and also
for enabling him to continue to use reading, writing and calculation for his own and
the community’s development”. The characteristics of functional illiteracy vary
from one culture to another, as some cultures require better reading and writing skills
than others. A reading level that might be sufficient to make a farmer functionally
literate in a rural area of a developing country might qualify as functional illiteracy
in an urban area of a technologically advanced country.
 Economic incompetence means that the economic condition is poor. It may
occur at individual level, national level or at business level. In simple words, it means
when one is unable to meet the economic needs. It also means economic
powerlessness. The economic incompetent result in variety of forms and occur due
to variety of causes. Income inequality is one of the many types of economic
incompetence and it occur when there exists a wide gap between income of different
social groups in a society.

Illiteracy breeds economic incompetencies at three levels. These levels are

individual, business and national. At individual level, at first, illiterate individuals
get jobs which are not highly paid. Most of the illiterate individuals hardly secure
any jobs which pay similar to jobs for literate individuals. Most of the times, these
jobs include: cobbler, driver, security guard, car mechanic, generator operator,
gardener, whitewasher, carpenter, dish washer, cook, barber, builder, labourer,
plumber and tailor etc. In any society around the globe, these jobs are less paid. For
example, according to “careerexplorer” (a recruitment firm is US), plumbers earn an
average yearly salary of $35,313. On the other hand, the average yearly salary of an
engineer is $56,310.

Secondly, unemployment rate is also higher among individuals who are

illiterate when compared with the literate individuals thus breeding economic
incompetencies. According to the Literacy Foundation, he unemployment rate is 2–
4 times higher among those with little schooling than among those with Bachelor’s
degrees. Moreover, illiterate people have to look and search for the employment. It
means that they wait longer than the literate people thus generating more economic
incompetencies.

Likewise, at business level, illiteracy breeds economic inequalities. At first,

illiteracy can lead to cost of fixing an incorrect product. For example, if an employee
is illiterate then his ability to take orders and then to make the product is limited.
This can lead to a product which is not according to desired specifications.
Consequently, the company has to fix the product thus costing the company
important time and money.

Secondly, any business can lose its customers due to poor communication.
Illiterate business representatives is the major cause of poor communication. For
example, in retail business, when an employee of the company has to interact with
the customer, then prior knowledge of the product is required in order to deal with
the customer. If the employee is illiterate or lacking basic skills to communicate then
company can lose its customers. According to Forbes, businesses lost $75B
worldwide due to poor communication.

Thirdly, illiterate individuals lacks technological skills which are necessary to

advance in today’s world. Employees in today’s workforce are expected to create,
edit and read numerous documents on a computer. The more literate an individual,
the more likely they are to be in a job role that requires the use of a computer. Now,
the world is moving at a faster pace. People can contact other people in just a matter
of seconds, they can be virtually present anywhere in the whole world. Similarly,
businesses have improved their efficiencies through the use of cutting edge
technologies and adapting new methods of production. However, all this can only
be possible if the individual is literate and have know how about a particular
machine. For example, if an individual is illiterate , he will be lacking the knowledge
to operate the machines. As a result , it will lead to economic inequality.

In the same manner, at national level, illiteracy breeds economic

incompetencies. At first, it slows the overall growth of the GDP. The Gross
Domestic Product (GDP), which is the annual total output of any country, is an
important indicator to know about the economic health of any country. If the people
of a country are illiterate, there are less chances of them to participate in such
activities which directly contribute to the GDP of the country. For example, if a
person is illiterate, then he is less likely to work in a production firm which make
semiconductors. Thus not contributing to the overall national output and eventually
slowing down the growth. According to the literary foundation, “the higher the
proportion of adults with low literacy proficiency, the slower the overall long-term
GDP growth rate”.

Secondly, illiteracy yields mismanagement of resources and as a result

countries remain poor. Pakistan provides a good example of resource
mismanagement. Pakistan came into being in 1947 amid much revolutionary fervour
and dreams of a bright future. Four years later in 1951, the fledgling country was
having a literacy rate of 17.9 per cent – which meant 18.64 million citizens were
illiterate. One would expect this number of illiterates to go down with the passage
of time. On the contrary, the illiterate population of the country has swollen to the
extent that in 1998, over 50 million Pakistanis were illiterate . The current illiteracy
rate is 42pc. The deplorably low literacy rate has taken a terrible toll on the nation’s
performance in every sphere of life. The wealth and wellbeing of a nation is
inevitably the sum of its citizen’s wealth and wellbeing. Illiterate individuals are ill
equipped to realise their own true potential or to fend for their dependents. This gives
rise to a vicious cycle in which illiterate adults live in poverty and fail to educate
their children, condemning them to life of want and poverty. In turn, these
children grow to become illiterate adults. Similarly, Illiteracy undermines the very
foundations of democracy. Illiterate citizens inevitably lack in awareness and
reasoning skills. How can we expect a voter to make an informed decision when
he/she is unable to even read a newspaper? Illiterate voters are easy to be misled.
Small wonder so many Pakistanis either abstain or take the wrong side in politically
defining moments. The root cause for frequent intervals of dictatorship and political
instability in the country is the illiteracy of 70% voters living in rural areas, who
cannot read newspapers and hence can easily be exploited or misguided. Illiterate
voters chose illiterate representatives who lack the sense and ability manage the
resources of the country and as a result a countries remain poor and this cycle
continues. Pakistan is rich in natural resources but poor in managing them and all
that because of illiteracy. Pakistan has the seventh largest coal reserves in the world,
but cannot exploit them properly to overcome the energy crisis in the country.
Pakistan has plenty of water resources but cannot avert the water crisis. Pakistan has
many untapped mineral resources but cannot make use of them. Pakistan has huge
gas and oil reserves but cannot do away with gas and oil shortages. The current crisis
shows a gloomy picture of poor or inefficient management.

In order to better understand impact of illiteracy on economy, comparison

among the the illiterate and literate countries give valuable insight. Today, USA and
UK enjoy economic prosperity. The literacy rate of USA, Canada and UK is 99pc
for each. The U.S. has one of the world's largest and most influential financial
markets. The NewYork Stock Exchange is by far the world's largest stock exchange.
Foreign investments made in the U.S. total almost $2.4 trillion, while American
investments in foreign countries total to over $3.3 trillion.The U.S. economy is
ranked first in international ranking on venture capita. Similarly, the economy of the
United Kingdom is highly developed and market-orientated. It is the fifth-largest
national economy in the world measured by nominal gross domestic product (GDP),
ninth-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP), and twenty second-largest by GDP
per capita, comprising 3.5% of world GDP.

Contrary to that, countries with higher illiteracy rates are economically less
sound and dependent on other countries for their survival. In case of Afghanistan,
literacy rate is only 28pc. The major cause of this bleak picture of economy is
illiteracy. According to UNICEF, 1000 schools have been closed since the last
decade, 500000 children are deprived of school till now, 3.7m children between the
ages of 7 and 17 are currently out of school.
 Moreover, illiterate societies have negative attitudes towards the policies of
the government which leads to economic incompetencies. In case of economy, the
policies of the government involve taxation on products, income taxes, sales taxes,
toll taxes, taxes on import and export of products, filing of returns, utility bills etc.
Sadly, the illiterate individuals look at all of these policies as a burden and as a result
either try to evade the taxes or pay less. This consequently causes economic
problems not only for the government, but also eventually for the entire society. The
tax to GDP ratio of highly literate societies like America is 27pc. However, tax to
GDP ratio of illiterate societies like Afghanistan is only 6pc. 

In order to address the problem, one needs to first understand the causes. At
first, cultural factors are responsible for causing illiteracy. Culture is related to
different spheres of life. For example, if in a particular geographical area, the sole
dependency of a society is on agriculture for their survival, then the culture demands
the individuals to remain stick to agriculture and as a result individuals do not build
their capacity to move ahead in life. Similarly, there are cultures which forbade
women to get education. For example, around 60pc of children which are out of
school in Afghanistan are girls.

Secondly, illiterate parents are the main cause of illiteracy. Illiterate

individuals are ill equipped to realise their own true potential or to fend for their
dependents. Their inability to make progress in life translates into the nation’s
inability to advance. When parents are illiterate, they will not think about the well
being of their children in terms of literacy. As they are themselves illiterate, one
cannot expect them to guide their children. 
 
 The third cause of illiteracy is
difficult living conditions which include poverty. When people do not have adequate
resources to advance in their lives, they will be left behind. The world is changing
rapidly. One needs to continuously update himself to keep with the pace of life.
When an individual lack resources, he will continue to do the same job or work for
the rest of his life because he is unable to update himself. Moreover, in poverty, the
main concern of the individuals is to live and survive difficult conditions not to
advance in life. This gives rise to a vicious cycle in which illiterate adults live in
poverty and fail to educate their children, condemning them to life of want and
poverty. In turn, these children grow to become illiterate adults.
 One of the dilemmas of the illiteracy is that illiterate people do not know that
they are suffering from it. In order to to solve this issue, awareness programmes
should be implemented. Government needs to initiate different awareness
programmes across the country to address the problem of illiteracy. They should be
provided information through mass media of communication and general social
contact with the educated people about impacts of illiteracy.

Moreover, these literacy programmes should be in accordance with the needs

of the people. For example, in rural areas, where more illiterate people are living,
awareness programmes must include the basic knowledge. However, in cities and
urban areas where people possess basic knowledge about things, awareness
programmes may include advance skills. Moreover, profession based literacy
programmes can be initiated. For example, if an individual is more than fifty years
old and associated with agriculture then he should be provided guidance to better
understand agriculture and to use innovation in agriculture. Similarly, if an
individual is teaching at a primary school, he should be given guidance about how
to incorporate latest technology to help make his pupils to better understand him.

Furthermore, special emphasis on female education is required. Women are

an important part of the society. They are the building blocks of family system. It is
the mother who has to spend most of the time with her children. If the mother is
literate enough, then she will teach her children the same. As a result, we will see
literate individuals in the society. Contrary to that, if the mother is illiterate, she will
pass on the same to her children, and as a result, illiterate individuals will lead the
society. Therefore, female education is of great importance for the overall uplift of
the society from the grass root level.

In a nutshell, illiteracy breeds economic incompetencies. These

incompetencies are generated not only at individual level, but also at social and
national level. If an individual is illiterate, then he is not just hurting himself, but
also the whole society. Illiterate parents and cultural constraints are the main causes
of illiteracy. Moreover, in order to solve menace of illiteracy, governments need to
take steps by first knowing the types and causes of illiteracy. Awareness
programmes should be directed as per the needs of the people. Only then, the
problem of illiteracy can be solved.