LAHORE SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

Underdevelopment of Development: Illiteracy

Term Paper

Submitted to: Dr. Rashid Amjad Submitted by: Amna Zaidi Dated: 12/30/2013

Literacy is a fundamental human right and the underpinning for constant learning throughout a persons life span. It is entirely essential to social and human development in its ability to transform lives. However, today, nearly 17% of the worlds adult population, and an estimated 122 million youth globally are illiterate. Moreover, close to 775 million adults around the globe lack minimum literacy skills. As defined by the World Bank, Literacy is a basic set of skills (reading, writing and counting) or competencies. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) adds more to this definition by stating that a person is functionally literate who can 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 communitys development. A definition not much different from this is put forth by United Nations International Childrens Fund (UNICEF) whereby functional literacy is the ability to use reading, writing and numeracy skills for effective functioning and development of the individual and the community. As demonstrated by the definitions mentioned above, it is safe to say that a link between education and the well-being of the overall society has been established and recognized by these international aid agencies. Further incorporating skills and thus a persons ability to contribute to ones economy can be seen in the defin ition of illiteracy as stated by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) i.e. a particular skill, namely the ability to understand and employ printed information in daily activities at home, at work and in the community, to achieve ones goals, and to develop ones knowledge and potential. Despite all these influential organizations recognizing the importance of education and eradication of illiteracy, progress in educational development in the world since 1900 has been slow and uneven between countries. Providing basic education for all children in developing countries has been and remains an unmet challenge of governments and international organizations alike.

Formal education is a relatively recent institution in the history of mankind dating a mere two centuries. The recognition that education relates to the countrys development is even more recent, dating back just a few decades. Non-formal education of course existed since ancient times in the form of philosopher-student or a master-apprentice relationship, and some European universities date as far back as the 13th century. But organized schooling, where children of a certain age were obliged to attend school started as late as the nineteenth century in England. This education, however, was more of a status symbol and was available to only the select few who fell under the upper echelon of the stratified society. It was not until the early 1960s when the link between education and economic development was instigated by the so-called human capital school originating at the University of Chicago. According to early accounts of human capital theory, expenditure on education is an investment with many similarities to investment in machines. National resources are used while the student is in school, in the form of direct outlays to education and foregone labor earnings. But later in life more educated workers contribute to national output more than less educated workers. The discounted difference between the cost and benefit flows related to education can lead to estimates of the profitability of investment in human capital. This basic idea was expanded in the 1980s and 1990s to include predictions of the so-called new growth theory postulating that education, beyond enhancing an individuals productivity, also has an efficiency boosting external effect on others, thus further enhancing national output. A flood of empirical research has followed attempting to estimate the effect of education on economic growth.

Throughout the short history of formal education it has been a perpetual challenge as to how to provide the quantity and type of education that would maximize social welfare.

With respect to our country, Pakistan still has one of the highest illiteracy rates in the world and the second largest out-of-school population of children, with Nigeria being the first. In the 5564 years age group, Pakistanis have a literacy rate of almost 30%, those in the 45-54 years age

group have a literacy rate of nearly 40%, and the 25-34 year age group has a 50% rate of literacy with the Pakistanis having ages between 15-24 have a 60% literacy rate. It would be vital to keep in mind that according to the official definition adopted by the Government of Pakistan, a person with the ability to read and write is any language is classified as literate. Public education in Pakistan is overseen by the Governments Education Ministry and the provincial governments, whereas the federal government is mostly assists in curriculum development, accreditation and in the financing of research. Despite the dismal state of illiteracy, Pakistan has maintained a low level of spending, allocating less than 3% of GNP to education. Pakistan has the second largest number of children out of school and yet reduced its spending on education from 2.6% to 2.3% of GNP over the decade. This is inconsistent with the countrys need for better social, political, and economic performance. The uses of literacy for the exchange of knowledge are constantly evolving, along with advances in technology. From the Internet to text messaging, the ever-wider availability of communication makes for greater social and political participation. A literate community is therefore a dynamic community; one that exchanges ideas and engages in debate. Illiteracy, however, is an obstacle to a better quality of life, and can even breed exclusion and violence. However, in the face of the governments failure to prioritize this issue, t here are various other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating within the realm of Pakistan whose agenda is to address the dire state of illiteracy in the country. One such organization that solely focuses on provision of quality education is CARE. CARE Foundation is a welfare trust that was founded in Pakistan in 1988 by Mrs. Seema Aziz with the aim of providing quality education to the underprivileged children of our nation. The organizations mission is to empower individuals through education. The stress on quality of education is due to the fact that one of the fundamental causes of high drop-out rates within the public schools is low student to teacher ratio, frequent absenteeism in teachers and students alike, and under skilled and inadequately trained and/or educated teachers. Due to this, CARE foundation also enrolls all its teachers in teacher training programs so that they are better equipped to impart the curriculum.

Today CARE is educating over 160,000 children nationwide; in just two decades, CARE Foundation is efficiently managing an astounding 231 schools. Apart from construction of their own schools, they pioneered a public-private partnership model where they adopt government schools. Through the adoption of government schools and provision of vital missing facilities such as libraries, trained teachers, classrooms, science and computer labs, the goal was to upgrade the quality of education imparted in these schools.

This public-private partnership model holds great promise. Instead of building schools from ground zero (which lends financial soundness to the model), the focus is on making existing public schools better in terms of increased resources and qualified teachers. This idea is of great merit because it should be realized that it only the government, that despite all its shortcomings, is the only institution that has access to the masses of the country. Moreover, the schools that CARE adopts are not for the short term or any limited amount of time but rather stay affiliated with them.

A potential topic for further research is the difference in performance of public schools versus the public schools adopted by CARE foundation. Drop-out ratio, test scores (of students and teachers) and the availability of resources such as libraries, computer and/science labs (dummy) can be used as variables to measure the performance of schools that have been chosen.

References:
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Banerjee. A and Duflo. A, (2005). Growth Theory through the Lens of Development Economics. in P. Aghion and S. Durlauf, eds., Handbook of Economic Growth. North Holland: Amsterdam.

Understandings of Literacy, Education For All Global Monitoring report (2006). Accessed from: http://www.unesco.org/education/GMR2006/full/chapt6_eng.pdf

Fact Sheet: Education in Pakistan, Education For All Global Monitoring report (2012). Accessed from:

http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/ED/pdf/EDUCATION_IN_PAKI STAN__A_FACT_SHEET.pdf

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/pakistan_pakistan_statistics.html

"The Evolving Definition of Literacy." RSS. UNICEF, 2012. Web. 30 Dec. 2013.

Latif, Aamir. "Education for All - Grassroots Stories." UNESCO. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Dec. 2013.