Why Lack of Literacy Is a Problem - Cause and Effect Essay

Introduction

The most critical skill in life perhaps is literacy. It indicates the differences while looking at the life full of hardship and a life that is well lived. Literacy challenge is a global issue, and it matters a lot since the inability to write and read is at many times linked to other problems. Those who are illiterate are often likely to be living in poverty, school dropouts, lacking education, hardship in finding employment and missing out on various opportunities that involve participation in social activities and workforce. The literacy challenge cut across age, gender, culture, race, and geographical location.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Causes of Illiteracy

There are a lot of children worldwide who are raised in households in which their parents are illiterate and have low skills. Several children born by parents who cannot write or read also get illiterate in the long run. This scenario is most predominant in the remote areas in which many people from the older generation did not have formal education. This is contrary to those whose parents had a formal educational background. The illiteracy, in this case, leads to a lack of adequate knowledge on key aspects of progress in the family and the society.

Another case involves the unemployment of the educated. In this case, individual beliefs and hold that the reason for going to schools is to get employment in future and have a good life and that without any promise of employment, education ceases to be a necessity to them. A country in which many educated people are unemployed does not motivate those illiterate to go to school, and as a result, the illiteracy level persist. Additionally, lack of affordable education facilities can make those with ambitions to learn to remain illiterate. Also, the poverty level in many families may pose a challenge in educating the children as the parents may not afford school fees consequently leading to illiteracy.

Effects/Problems Caused by Illiteracy

Illiteracy has various impacts on the individual and the society as a whole; hence it affects the progress of the individual, their families, and the general society. Illiteracy tends to increase the poverty level in the community as the illiterate individuals get lower income that is not enough to sustain them and their families, take their children to school and invest in additional income generating activities. The low income is mainly due to their inability to get well-paying jobs as they lack the requisite skills (Mishra, 55).

Secondly, illiteracy leads to an increase in the crime rate levels in society and this associated with the high unemployment rate. This is attributable to the lack of jobs as they do not have the right skills. Illiterate people if rendered jobless may try to steal from others to provide food to their families, and this may make them use force to get what they want. Besides, illiteracy leads to generational learning difficulty as the illiterate people are likely to promote the illiteracy in their children hence making the children to grow into illiterate adults.

The self-esteem of an individual is also affected by their illiteracy level. Those who can read well tend to have high confidence level compared to the illiterate and this makes those with the reading challenges to spend more time in trying to cover up low literacy levels hence leading to isolation and shame. Illiterate individuals also tend to have verbal fluency challenges as they cannot arrange their reasoning and bring them out (Nielsen, & Waldemar, 578).

Works Cited

Mishra, Satyabrata. "Poverty and Demand-Side Problems of Primary Education: A Theoretical Note." Splint International Journal of Professionals 4.1 (2017): 55. on 29th March 2019 from https://search.proquest.com/openview/0ad472320bfa12776d9e6890088b1533/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=2044944

Nielsen, T. Rune, and Gunhild Waldemar. "Effects of literacy on semantic verbal fluency in an immigrant population." Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition 23.5 (2016): 578-590. Accessed on 29th March 2019 from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13825585.2015.1132668