Literacy campaigns in developing countries

Abstract

Developing countries have the greater number of illiterates in the modern world. While industrialised countries harbour about 15% illiterate adults, the figure in developing countries averages about 70%. Faced with this high rate of illiteracy governments and social organizations in developing countries devote a great part of their revenue and energy to the problem of eradication of illiteracy, which is regarded as a spoke in the wheel of progress. But in spite of all these efforts the returns have not been too encouraging because many factors still hinder progress. These include traditional religious habits and the problem of language in multilingual societies where foreign languages still serve as media of instruction. Difficult as the problems seem to be, developing countries still place very high premiums on their human resources. They believe that with mass literacy the contributions from their populations would enhance social and economic progress.