Amongst all the major challenges that plague Africa, it seems the wrestle against illiteracy has been a rather long and unyielding one. Our efforts in battling out illiteracy has undoubtedly been commendable with global leaders and NGOs making concerted strides in order to trim its negative socio-economic influences. Nonetheless the ecosystem of illiteracy in rural Africa is still very populous and threatening. The situation today can be juxtaposed with the grim portrait of a vast barren desert land riddled with scanty and sparse number of oases. The desert representing the uneducated Africans in rural areas and the oases; the realistic size of the opportunities the 21st century world presents them.
Illiteracy is a cataract that frustrates and blots vision and outlook. It is what keeps rural Africans chained to ignorance and superstition and an obstacle in the path of civilization. Having conceived horrible socio-economic conditions in rural Africa such as high mortality rates, low life expectancies, child-labors, child marriages, high growth rate of populations and myriads of other ills, it is essential to intensify our efforts to utterly protect generations from the scourge of illiteracy.
Education is a necessary rudiment in raising a well-balanced African society. People are the backbone of such societies and the educated and skilled manpower of the continent are therefore its greatest asset. Rural Africa will be strong if the education is made stronger. Education will equip us to be presented with equal opportunities as given others. It will make people become robust citizens, physically fit, mentally alert, morally healthy, endowed with the skills and motivations needed to advance the African rural society.
African rural illiteracy though, over the years has proven to be a very interesting subject worth studying. Interesting as a result of the key role poverty plays in shaping how rural Africans reason against anti-illiteracy.
For while labor is put into ending illiteracy, the different altitudes of receptivity and interest that have caught up with it is very confounding. This is because realistically, the African continent is a large and bio-diversified platform where worlds collide and people beg to differ.
I by this publication wish to critically explore and assess the various levels of victim engagement that is associated with anti-illiteracy campaigns around African rural areas as influenced by poverty.
THE CHILDREN
The children of rural Africa may be vulnerable and dependent. They are also probing and hopeful. Childhood is when these children have their minds meticulously safeguarded by the fortifying tonic of education as they grow and widen their perspectives and acquire new experiences. But for many rural African children, the reality of childhood is entirely different.
The purpose of education is to develop and nurture the inherent qualities of a child. If the children are not educated, their natural talents and inherent qualities remain suppressed throughout their lives and they are unable to express themselves. This reason is because education is the catalyst that drives ideas into practicality.
For most children living in rural Africa, the ascent from illiteracy should be a swift and joyful flight. The children are inherently investigative and therefore find education and re-education a rather welcoming concept. Inasmuch as they do, certain socio-economic conditions deter such children from running that race.
A major fragment of the child populace of rural Africa are uneducated because they have very little to spend and nothing at all to spare. Many areas are deprived and have few to no schools coupled with unqualified or displeased teachers.
Poverty ultimately results in the downfall of the passion for education and makes rural African children fall prey to the hazards of illiterate living. So even when these children are ready to acquire the skills and expertise that will make them fit into a modernized world, as a result of poverty, chances of that happening are slim to none.
To consider another version of the same story will be prudent. Children in other parts of rural Africa despise the anti-illiteracy efforts that are put in place in order to metamorphose them into well-lit and respectable denizens.
Usually this situation arises when such rural African children begin working during the early stages of their lives and eventually become “independent” while they are still young. Children may take up jobs as farmhands, bus conductors, porters and janitors. Regardless of the dangers posed to their health and survival, African rural children often times take up hazardous duties at mines and quarries in order to make a living.
Nonetheless, it is jolly rotten to suppose that the menial and inconsistent wages such children receive will be ample to carry them through every stage of life. Yet these children find it absurd to rubbish their jobs which earns them money and chase after insipid dreams of knowledge of how to read and write. These children who unflinchingly believe in the standards of their supposed “self-sufficiency” eventually grow up and realize that illiteracy is an unbending road to self-regret. The innocent and delightful nature of such kids are skewed entirely by poverty.
Why then is poverty such a worthy subject worth looking into? Regardless of whether illiterate children are ready and receptive to anti-illiteracy efforts or not, poverty has its own cunning way of denying them a good chance of educational refinement. It is very much appropriate to assert that poverty has the terrifying knack to censor anti-illiteracy campaigns.
THE ADULTS
In the case of adults, the story is no different. Most developing areas in rural Africa where illiteracy is on the increase are characterized by a staggering number of highly backward yet conservative members of the adult group. It is also most probable to find a horde of children belonging to just few families. The high rate of reproduction which is often seen as social prestige than a menace is a burden the adults have to saddle themselves with.
African parents seem to have the conviction that forfeiting their traditional roles to get educated will be at the detriment of their children on whom they should shower all their attention and for whose sakes they should work harder in order to make ends meet.
Again as a result of insufficient funding, adults who live in squalor feel it’s better to not get educated at all than to begin and face financial constraints somewhere during the journey. Such thoughts rarely occur to the affluent folks of developed nations who pursue higher, further and harder levels of educational qualifications.
On the other side of the coin, adults who would have loved to get a good education are discouraged by the thought of enrolling in the same elementary school as children of the community over whom they assume parental roles and are traditionally obliged to correct, punish and discipline.
It is therefore very evident; the supremacy poverty has in curtailing anti-illiteracy campaigns.
In a nutshell, the concept of education is the vehicle that drives any modernized society. However, money is the fuel that powers that vehicle. Poverty in rural Africa has been the biggest stumbling block to anti-illiteracy campaigns. The need be that I assert that it seems an all important issue to expel poverty first, as this will prepare a warm and accommodating platform in order to shoot literacy into all corners of the African continent.