The Importance Of Literacy In Education

How do you control a population from discovering the truth about the vast atrocities that their same government purposely commits against their citizens? Simple. You keep them illiterate. Keep them from learning information unveiling the truth about how government institutions and policies are set to marginalize and discriminate against them. You refuse them the opportunities to better their lives by limiting the means of acquiring knowledge that Freire would argue would help alleviate them from systems of poverty. It would be against the interest of the oppressor(s) to educate the oppressed.

Therefor, literacy is a crucial aspect to a citizens’ ability to act as positive contributors to society and to be able to carry out rightful responsibilities. Being literate and able to read the world help prepare citizens to tackle any obstacles laid before them by structural and systems of inequality. Literacy is crucial to the success of individuals, families, and communities. It is more than a basic reading ability, and as Freire would say, it is the ability to read the world around you. Being literate and able to read equips you to be prepared to face the challenges the world has for as an underprivileged minority. Creating a critical consciousness amongst the poor will be the result of what Freire called conscientisation, “where the oppressed become subjects who affirm themselves in their own right through the discovery of the political and economic causes of their oppression” (Freire, p. 43).

During the Civil Rights Era in the United States, pro-slavery, Jim Crow supporting southern states maintained an elaborate voter registration system whose purpose was to deny the right to vote to African Americans, Latinos, and Native Amer...

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... children were exploited.

One of the most important effects of The Crusade was the collaboration between urban and rural populations. Existing together with the rural population had a profound impact on young people and allowed them to gain new understandings into the socio-economic and cultural lives of people in their country. This political consciousness affected the development of an entire generation. The movement was devised as part of a collective transformation process aspiring to redistribute power and wealth. The campaign helped people to develop basic skills, knowledge and attitudes beneficial to this transformation. In nations with insufficient financial resources and with poorly industrialized economies and infrastructures like Nicaragua, a massive literacy crusade primarily composed by volunteers and mass organizations, is able to make a difference.