The extent of illiteracy is frightening

May 24, 2009 Features / Columnists, My Column

By Adam Harris
Some time back I wrote about the inability of many young people to read. The students of the University of Guyana became angry to the point that they actually challenged me to prove to them that they really could not read. There were others who thought that I was unfair.
So one day I conducted a simple test in the Prime News studios. I gave a few of them a newspaper to read. Then I asked them to paraphrase what they had read. I asked another set to simply read a few passages for the purpose of recording.
I still remember this graduate student breaking down in tears after trying a few times to read a simple paragraph.

Then on Thursday at a meeting at Kaieteur News, I learnt that many of the reporters, including those who consider themselves senior reporters, do not read the newspapers at all. They could not tell me what was there in some of the pages. There were the few who perused the pages to see if their story was carried.
I suppose that reading is a dying custom. The other day I happened to be talking with some welfare people and the conversation gradually veered to the extent of illiteracy in the society.

I do not think that I would be exaggerating if I conclude that 40 per cent of many young men walking the streets cannot read or write.
I know for a fact that many of the young criminals cannot read, and by young, I mean men between the ages of 16 and 35. As a young man, the people who could not read were the old people who had grown up in this country when there was no compulsory education, when women were groomed to be housewives and therefore did not need an education although I wondered how they would count the money their spouses gave them.

I remember writing that there is no greater joy than ploughing through the pages of a book and forming the mental images. I now wonder how does an individual feel when he sees a newspaper and cannot decipher what is on the pages. The words, perhaps, look like decorated lines.
I cannot but help recall the two criminals who went to a home to help themselves to whatever they could. They encountered a sign at the gate that read, ‘Beware—the dogs bite’.
One turned to the other and asked what does the sign say to which he got the reply that the homeowner was indicating that he was not at home and people could leave what they have at the gate.

They jumped the gate and came face to face with three sizeable dogs. And the animals were not smiling. There was the expected confrontation and the two men eventually managed to scale the fence and into another yard where there were “more flingings” with some other dogs.
I saw the two bleeding men limping and hurrying along the road as I was heading home and concluded that they were the victims of some robbery or at worse, an attack from some people. One of them was crying. They were hard put to explain their injuries to the police who happened by a short while later.
In court their lawyer made an interesting point. He argued that people with vicious dogs should put up a sign so that innocent people may be warned. He argued that his clients were innocent and that the homeowner had no sign.

These two men actually said that there was no warning sign. The photographs tendered proved otherwise but as if for fun, the magistrate asked them to read the sign. And again one said that it was a notice informing people that the homeowner was not at home.
The lawyer then tried “a thing”. He said that the homeowner should have placed a picture of a dog on the sign to accommodate those who cannot read.

I still remember the days when, as a young man at La Jalousie, I had to read letters for the recipients. It was a community effort, actually, because on Saturdays I had to read three of four letters to a group of people.
Today, I would have to do the same to young people. What is worse is that these are the people who cannot qualify for certain jobs but they want money so they turn to crime. Christopher James was one.
I posit that once this trend continues, the society would not be safe because being unable to reason, these young men are going to invade wherever they think they should. Life would be pretty uncomfortable.
These are the very people who give a statement and when asked to read it back to ensure that it is accurate, cannot. Their lawyers then claim that the statement was given under duress.

It is this illiteracy that fosters so many repeat criminal offenders like the chain snatchers and the carjackers. And the Education Ministry is not doing much because it apparently does not know where to start.
Imagine a woman getting a result from a medical examination and not knowing what that result is.
I travel and young people sitting next to me on an aircraft would ask me to fill their Customs declaration forms. Immigration officers have to do the same for them. The education system has collapsed and this collapse was not long in the making.