International Literacy Day 2016 celebrates and honours the efforts and progress made towards increasing literacy rates around the world. The program is the brainchild of United Nations Agency UNESCO has been functional for five decades now.
In many African societies the line that separate the terms ‘Literacy’ and ‘Intellect’, have since become blurry as many confuse the two. Literacy describes knowledge of a specific subject or mastery of a certain skill whilst Intellect is more of my toolkit (inner game).
If you asked if our generation understood the meaning of literacy? My answer would be an aggressive “No!” We think having an eloquent accent and having a large vocabulary (jargon) means one is literate and smart. In the case of a person who has challenges with pronunciation versus one who speaks fluently the latter will most likely be considered as the educated one, regardless.
A ‘fancy’ accent or verbosity might stereotypically depict a person as educated BUT it is a person’s ability to reason, their logic and mastery in specific subject matters that defines Literacy. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying a person can’t have both. African stereotypes have seen us base Educational status on one’s intelligence and knowledge of the English Language also known as ‘Literacy’
Isn’t that absurd?! Could it be because we were taught to ‘hate’ our mother tongue, oh so long ago? Maybe we could blame Colonial rule, ignorance, arrogance and shame.
The irony of it all is our country Zimbabwe has been said to be one of the African countries with highest Literacy Rates and yet we have nothing to show for it except a well explained and jargoned Economic Crisis. On the contrary I strongly believe literacy matters BUT without that logical capability to process and make use of knowledge learnt it becomes void. Considering a refined accent and an eloquent pronunciation of words is the standard African measurement of knowledge.
It is important to note that a literate person can be intelligent and sometimes may not; being literate allows you to read and write whilst your intellectual capabilities determine how you process. In the words of Mark Twain “The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”
“…it is a person’s ability to reason, their logic and mastery in specific subject matters that defines Literacy”
Well said! very insightful indeed.