Essay On Illiteracy

Introduction : Literacy is a blessing while illiteracy is a curse. Illiteracy is similar to darkness because ignorance results in it. It prevents the people from marching ahead to set up on the ideal social fabric.

Its causes: There are some reasonable reasons or, causes for illiteracy. When the people of the country were under the yoke of foreign rule, few institutions were set up. People had to carry out their order like orderly. They were not allowed to acquire education. They had to remain at their beck and call. Books for reading were very scarce and more expensive for people. Then people had learned the way to practice dogmatisms, superstitions, and prejudices. 

At the same time, few people could read and write any letter of the alphabet. They had no 3Rs knowledge. Likewise, they sent their children not to any school but to the fields with a pair of bulls, agricultural tools like spade, hoe, rake, baskets, sickle etc. The scope of learning was, so to speak, absent especially for the governed in those days. Poverty caused people to remain illiterate. It also prevented them from going to schools but led them to the fields. 

First, people had to keep body and soul together working through hardship but did not have any relax and rest. Then people out of ignorance were not aware of the importance of education. As a result, their generation remained illiterate. The illiterate people are to work, move, enjoy life under the cover of darkness known as illiteracy. They have eyes but cannot read the black-inked letters like that of the bogus boo–an imaginary creature. 

As a result, basic human rights like housing, food, clothing, education, health, and medicine were Greek to the then people. They were not housed properly, taught the rules of health and sanitation and given proper medical treatment. These worsened situations told seriously upon literacy. The ruling class roled a ruling steam ruler over the common people. People had to live in an overcrowded room. The then prevailing society was dead against education. Education for all was not made compulsory. Most people used to work hard in the day but spent the night in gossiping, eating, sleeping and moving

The curse of illiteracy: The illiterate people are the burden of the nation. They make the nation uncivilized. They create problems, chaos, and confusion, hinder national development, increase population at an alarming rate, cover the land with barbarism, break the existing law and order, pollute the environment and do everything in an orthodox manner. The illiterate people are the roots of all evils for they have no sagacity and farsightedness. The illiterate people are dunder-headed, block-headed, superstitious, ferocious, confused, adamant, disobedient, disloyal, unrest, fickle-minded inconsiderate and unconscious.

Necessity of literacy: Bangladesh is a developing country, Her rate of literacy is about 30%. The major portion of people is illiterate. She can, for this reason, make no development in any field. An illiterate nation plays no role in development work because it cannot make any plan, profile, and design of it. Literacy helps a nation develop in all respects. It provides people with knowledge, wisdom, light of education and the power of detecting right or wrong.

Measures to be taken: To remove illiteracy the following steps should immediately and urgently be taken. The illiterate people should be made conscious and given the compact idea of the importance and necessity of education in individual and national life. Education up to class ten should be made free and compulsory, More and more schools should be set up up to the ward level of the village. The system of mass and old aged education should be introduced all over the country. Free distribution of books among the people should be made. Primary and secondary education should be made free and compulsory for all children. The system of scholarship for scholar and stipend for all general students should be introduced throughout the country. More and more teachers from among the unemployed literate people should be appointed to teach them. A penalty system like fine, tax or punishment under any section should be imposed upon those people who drop out or leave the schools before completing the scheduled course of studies.

Conclusion: Literacy and illiteracy are the two opposite directions of a thing. The farmer is a blessing and the latter is a curse. Hence literacy should be encouraged and illiteracy should be eradicated