By: Bridie Beamish

National/World Editor

Seven hundred and seventy-three million adults world-wide are illiterate. An additional three billion struggle with basic reading and writing skills. Despite steady increases in literacy rates, many still remain unable to read or write, perpetuating disparities in education, wealth, and gender. We must address the problem of illiteracy, enact global change, and ensure countries and their citizens continue to develop in an ever-changing world. 

To comprehend the severity of this issue, we must look at the root of the problem, beginning with youth. Despite the United Nations’ adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 — which contain 17 objectives, including education, aimed to promote peace and prosperity for people — more than 393 million children fail to gain basic literacy skills by the age of ten. Tom Hart, CEO of the ONE Campaign — a non-profit that fights poverty and disease — asserted, “These figures reveal the shocking failure of world leaders to protect and prioritise children’s education…When children can transition from learning to read to reading to learn by age 10, it sets them up for a lifetime of learning…We must pick up the progress for change. Their futures depend on it. Our world depends on it.” Officials must enact more substantial initiatives to reduce illiteracy rates rather than sitting idly by and awaiting a gradual impact. 

Additionally, illiteracy fosters inequality among those of different social classes, impacting the opportunities for those in marginalized communities to succeed, which perpetuates a society built on the supremacy of wealthy white individuals. Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have the highest percentage of illiterate adults; the two areas illiteracy rates  are 51 percent and 26 percent, respectively, and this problem has devastating consequences. Illiterate individuals and their children are more likely to die young, and illiteracy impacts one’s lifetime earning potential by 30 to 42 percent, creating societies with more crime, poverty, and disease. 

It is easy for individuals and policymakers to dismiss these statistics by solely attributing them to less developed countries, but the problem is closer to home than you may realize. For instance, two-thirds of fourth graders in the US are not proficient in reading. Today, eighth graders’ reading levels are worse than in 1998, and one in five adults in the US are without basic literacy skills. While the higher illiteracy rates in underdeveloped societies contribute to inequality among the nations, they also create an issue for minorities within the US. Forty-three percent of adults living in poverty have low literacy skills, and about 52 percent of Black and 45 percent of Hispanic fourth-grade children score below basic reading levels, compared to their white counterparts’ score of 23 percent.

Globally, the deleterious effects of illiteracy contribute to an immense disparity in equality across the nations, specifically among marginalized groups; Hispanic, Black, and poverty-stricken individuals experience higher literacy rates and women account for 496 million, or two-thirds, of the adult illiterate population. As long as wealthy white individuals continue to be the leading representation for literate people, a society embedded in inequality will continue to prosper. Thus, it is critical that world leaders begin to direct their focus to the education of the world’s youth across all nations and for all individuals.

(Sources: NY Times, Save the Children, Teach The World Foundation, UNESCO, USA Today, World Literacy Foundation)