Introduction Illiteracy is the inability to read and write at an adequate level of proficiency that is critical for communication. Illiterate adults are unable to use printed and written information to function in the society so as to achieve one’s goals and also to develop one’s potential. According to an international nonprofit ProLiteracy in 2003, there are 36 million adults in the United States alone. This potential includes a broad range of information-processing skills that one can use daily in school and at the community as a whole. Adult illiteracy has become a societal problem because illiterate people can never fully utilize writing and reading skills to make use of their fully potential in the world. The thesis statement of adult illiteracy involves reasons why it identified as a societal problem; the solutions proposed to solve this problem and the statistical information of adult literacy as the global societal problem. Different types of society exist. These types of illiteracy are technological illiteracy, mathematical illiteracy, visual illiteracy, school illiteracy, community illiteracy and personal illiteracy. All these types of illiteracy are caused by various reasons. These reasons are summarized in the following discussion. Causes of Adult Illiteracy People are usually mistaken about illiteracy. School illiteracy is overvalued to the extent that many adults have started to believe the act of reading and writing are the only important things in school. It is this type of reasoning that make many adults less interested in wanting to gain more knowledge and see things beyond the negative images. This has become one of the main reasons why adult illiteracy has increased in the world over the last few years. Another reason for adult illiteracy is the misuse of groups. Some people tend to agree with the argument that can make one believe that he or she is weak as a reader and he or she won’t be able to achieve literacy even after finishing school. This type of thinking lowers someone’s self-esteem and self-confidence meaning that the person will not bother to seek literacy help. People’s reading attitude are influential in literacy behaviors. According to McKenna in 2001, reading attitudes are influenced by factors such as a person’s social experiences with reading, one’s personal experiences, the cultural norms about reading, cultural norms and the learner’s preferences about reading. Attitude is associated with unwillingness to read. Every learning experience that a child has in school will at some point determine how that child will determine to learn. The learners who have had negative experiences in school will come to view school and learning in total as a bad experience that. This disengagement spreads over to adults. An adult learner who has negative perceptions about school would not want to be associated with it. These learners never get interested in educational process because they don’t see it as valuabl.

1. Introduction
Illiteracy is the inability to read and write at an adequate level
of proficiency that is critical for communication. Illiterate
adults are unable to use printed and written information to
function in the society so as to achieve one’s goals and also to
develop one’s potential.
According to an international nonprofit ProLiteracy in 2003,
there are 36 million adults in the United States alone. This
potential includes a broad range of information-processing
skills that one can use daily in school and at the community as a
whole. Adult illiteracy has become a societal problem because
illiterate people can never fully utilize writing and reading
skills to make use of their fully potential in the world. The
thesis statement of adult illiteracy involves reasons why it
identified as a societal problem; the solutions proposed to solve
this problem and the statistical information of adult literacy as
the global societal problem.
Different types of society exist. These types of illiteracy are
technological illiteracy, mathematical illiteracy, visual
illiteracy, school illiteracy, community illiteracy and personal
illiteracy. All these types of illiteracy are caused by various
reasons. These reasons are summarized in the following
discussion.
Causes of Adult Illiteracy
People are usually mistaken about illiteracy. School illiteracy is
overvalued to the extent that many adults have started to believe
the act of reading and writing are the only important things in

2. school. It is this type of reasoning that make many adults less
interested in wanting to gain more knowledge and see things
beyond the negative images. This has become one of the main
reasons why adult illiteracy has increased in the world over the
last few years.
Another reason for adult illiteracy is the misuse of groups.
Some people tend to agree with the argument that can make one
believe that he or she is weak as a reader and he or she won’t be
able to achieve literacy even after finishing school. This type of
thinking lowers someone’s self-esteem and self-confidence
meaning that the person will not bother to seek literacy help.
People’s reading attitude are influential in literacy behaviors.
According to McKenna in 2001, reading attitudes are influenced
by factors such as a person’s social experiences with reading,
one’s personal experiences, the cultural norms about reading,
cultural norms and the learner’s preferences about reading.
Attitude is associated with unwillingness to read. Every
learning experience that a child has in school will at some point
determine how that child will determine to learn. The learners
who have had negative experiences in school will come to view
school and learning in total as a bad experience that. This
disengagement spreads over to adults. An adult learner who has
negative perceptions about school would not want to be
associated with it. These learners never get interested in
educational process because they don’t see it as valuable. He or
she may graduate with a degree or diploma but with very
minimal skills. In the long term, these attitudes lead to adult
literacy.
Adult illiteracy can also be caused by the background of the
family. If a child is born in a family that does not value
education or where the family members cannot read or write,
the child will think that literacy is not very important and
therefore he or she won’t bother. As classwork becomes harder

3. for this type of learner, he or she will drop out of school
quickly due to lack of motivation from the parents. This type of
learner will become an adult with poor skills, and this habit will
be passed to their children. Most parents have that willingness
to help their children and show them the importance of
illiteracy, but they are unable to because of lack of necessary
skills.
Another leading cause of education is high population growth.
Population growth can affect the quality of education and the
budget allocation. Most families that have more than the
standard number of family members will terminate the
education of some members to let other members continue with
education. The family members whose education is terminated
will find some other way to look after the family. This would
mean that they will look for employment opportunities which
don't require any form of skilled labor. In the third world
countries, there are cases where the budget allocation does not
cover for proper education facilities due to high population
growth. A populous environment, therefore, encourages adult
illiteracy. (Top 10 causes of illiteracy in the world, 2016).
Economic condition is also one of the main causes of illiteracy
in the world. Hard economic conditions subject people to
poverty. It is very hard to concentrate on a class if a learner is
hungry. Poor people engage in providing cheap labor so that
they can sustain themselves. The few money that they get from
working is not enough to pay for education. Poverty is a key
factor that causes illiteracy in adult people in the world.
Adult illiteracy is one the major societal problems in the world.
It interferes with the economic and social development of a
country. In a modern country, the success of a country is
determined by the level of education that its people have
because of it these people that elect the people who form the
government. If these people are not educated and enlightened,

4. then there is a possibility of them being exploited. For this
reason, adult illiteracy is very critical in ensuring that the
democratic institutions function properly.
This societal problem of adult illiteracy is spread among many
different communities in the world. In India, for example,
young people join the workforce at a tender age instead of going
to school to gain an education. Over 60% of the population in
this country depend on agriculture for survival. Parents usually
consider the male children as workers from an early stage and
expect them to give helping hands in farming fields. Parents are
reluctant to take children to school to gain education because
they will be deprived of the workforce that these children
provide. The educated children are unfit for farming because
they prefer to live in cities away from rural homes where
farming usually takes place. If these children who are subjected
to labor, would be left to get training in their field of choice,
then there is a possibility that adult illiteracy would reduce and
these children will make their lives better. Literacy programs
should, therefore, be linked with work and the life of people so
that they act as a tool for developing rural areas.
The audio-visual platforms are very useful in spreading the
awareness about education among the illiterate people.
Televisions, for example, have family programs that are
centered on, family planning, child welfare, education that are
educative. Radio is also a useful tool in designing programs that
are very useful in educating the illiterate the importance of
education.
Various educational institutions have begun correspondence
courses which do not always require regular attendance. This
type of learning is designed for students who may have
discontinued their formal education due to different factors.
These courses have benefitted the people who perceive
education as a life-long activity, and they may want to refresh

5. their knowledge about a particular discipline or even to acquire
new knowledge. The idea of distance learning is welcomed by
these people.
Effects of Adult Illiteracy
.
Adult illiteracy has continued to spread in the whole according
to recent studies. Over 28% of people in the world are illiterate
according to a study conducted by World Statistics Institute.
Another related study by the same company shows that the rate
at which illiteracy levels increases in the world is 31%. These
figures are imperative because illiteracy has different effects on
any society. The higher the number of people in a country, the
harder it will be for a country to develop. Illiteracy is an
inhibitor of development in any setup or institution. An example
of this fact is this: the United States is one of the most
developed countries in the world, and it has an illiterate level of
5%. Canada which is also a developed country has only an
illiterate rate of 85. This shows that for a country to develop it
must reduce its illiteracy levels. On the other hand, Turkey has
an illiterate rate of 61%. This rate has inhibited development in
the country because they are an underdeveloped country. Iran
which is also underdeveloped has an illiterate rate of 43%.
Another significant effect of illiteracy there is lack of
competition in the new global knowledge economy. Literacy
gives people the ability to compete for jobs and positions in
prominent institutions in the economy. Lack of education
renders many positions to remain vacant for the lack of trained
people to take these positions. Therefore illiteracy deprives
many people the opportunity of earning livelihood and passing
their knowledge to people who may need it.

6. Illiterate people do not have the ability to scrutinize things
well, and they tend to believe things too easily. They do not
investigate what they are told, and this can make them prone to
being conned or cheated. The society has portrayed uneducated
people as slaves and assistants while the educated people in the
society are seen as leaders and people who can take the society
forward on matters of development. The difficulty in
understanding social issues lowers the level of community
involvement and its participation in civil affairs.
Adult illiteracy also has negative impact on the health of the
people concerned. Illiterate individuals experience more
accidents due to ignorance. The illiterates also have the
tendency of misusing medication because either they do not
understand the importance of the medication or they do not
know how to read the relevant information in medication which
are the warnings, dosage, contradictions, etc. Misuse of
medication has adverse effects on an individual and can even
lead to death.
Solution
s to Adult Illiteracy
According to Quigley, B. Allan in 2002, adult illiteracy has
been a global problem for a very long time even though the
definitions and statistics keep changing. The focus of this
problem has been highlighted by the media. Adult illiteracy has

7. been identified as one of the key areas that need improvement.
Each state is required to focus on this issue to help alleviate
problems. In 1991, the National Literacy Act was passed by the
United States Congress. The primary goal of the formation of
this Act was to enhance the skills of adults and ensure that all
the adults in the United States acquire the necessary skills that
must ensure them to do any job effectively. The goal of the act
was to ensure all people become educated in the country. The
Literacy Act was also intended to strengthen the programs that
offer adult literacy education to everyone that is illiterate.
These programs received both federal and state funding, and
they were aimed at increasing everyone’s ability to read, write
and carry on with their work. This act was followed by the
launch of America’s Reads Challenge in 1996 by President Bill
Clinton. The main aim of this challenge was to help and
increase literacy among all the people of the family. It has been
noted that if a child grows up in an illiterate family, that child
will remain to be illiterate themselves because the members of
the family will not expose him or her to the importance of
illiteracy. This is usually known as the cycle of illiteracy. This
cycle brought the need for the America’s Reads Challenge since
strengthening the literacy of the whole family would help the
children in that family to be exposed to the importance of
education. In France, the French National Agency started a
campaign aiming to make the fight against illiteracy a national

8. cause in 2013. The current political commitment to focus on
education in the country is a real opportunity for the nation to
deal with the problem of illiteracy for the proper cause of the
country. The country intends to improve primary schools,
middle schools, and high schools to reduce illiteracy in the
coming few years. (Nicole Bella, 2012).
In spite of all these efforts from the government in coming up
with policies that assist in promoting literacy, there has been
the microscopic improvement in the fight to end adult illiteracy.
Lack of intended progress in this fight has been blamed on
many reasons. One of these reasons is that there is lack of a
universal method that can be used to address the illiteracy
problem among the people. There are various programs that
with different objectives that depend on the learners themselves,
funding or the objective which it represents.
Another reason as to why these programs initiated by the
government to end illiteracy are not effective is that most of
these programs that focus on eradicating adult illiteracy believe
that adults only need skills for him the only purpose of
economic benefit. This is very wrong and sends message to
people that there is no any other importance of getting literacy
skills other than to make more and have a high living standard,
which is not the main purpose to some people. If an adult has a

9. job even though he or she is not illiterate, he or she may not see
the need to acquire these skills live well.
Apart from the United States, other countries have also started
passing legislation acts to address this issues. Brazil is one of
such countries. The country has been having adult illiteracy
programs for almost 70 years, and many Brazilians see his issue
as an act of patriotism, (eradicating adult illiteracy in the
country). Kenya is another example of a country that is focused
on dealing with the issue of adult illiteracy. The government of
Kenya started the program of offering free primary education to
every child in the country in the year of 2003. This program was
aimed at ensuring that everyone in the country gets access to
education so that adult illiteracy can be done away with in the
long run.
Other than government policies, another strategy that can deal
with illiteracy is utilizing engaging, practical and self-chosen
texts in different forms. The high-interest text will attract the
learner into wanting to read them. Practical texts assist the
learner to realize how literacy can help him work well in
society. These informative texts provide the learner with more
information on the topic that one is studying. They work
together provide am an environment in which the student can
see the several uses of literacy. Self-selection gives the learner

10. some confidence and necessary skills to deal with illiteracy.
Avoidance of techniques such as ability grouping is important
in promoting literacy. Grouping individuals according to their
abilities to learn will create a wrong impression among the
learners because those that are placed in the lowest group will
keep in mind the notion that they are weak students. The
grouping brings a negative image and learners begin to lack
self-confidence regarding education. This mindset is carried on
to adulthood discouraging an individual’s eagerness to pursue
further education. Eliminating these ability groups will give
learners confidence and work with their peers to gain the
necessary skills together. These learning groupings can be done
without discriminating the understanding capabilities so that all
the people can learn and discuss together.
The government and other private institutions can provide funds
and incentives to encourage people to go to learning
institutions. Rewards can be a motivation to many people to
read. Motivation is the main force that pushes people to learn
how to read and write. It increases the eagerness of someone to
perform better. Parents can also be discouraged to work with
their children and help in explaining to them the importance of
education. This strategy will show the children the importance
of education and help them to focus on wanting to improve their

11. skills in learning. This solution was witnessed in Kenya in
2003. The government started sponsoring education programs to
enable everyone to afford the primary education. Free primary
education was made free at all public schools. Secondary
education was also made affordable to people who couldn’t
afford by providing funds to needy students. This was a turning
point in the fight against illiteracy in the country according to
Salome Gichura who is National EFA Co-coordinator in
Nairobi.
Use of constructivist methodology to teaching literacy skills is
important to adult learners. This approach enables the adult
learners to construct their understanding and control how they
want to learn. An adult is given the impression that he is in
control, which makes learning appear more fun. An adult is used
to be in control of their life so when they are given control of
their learning there will be no negativity. This approach is
usually used to enable the learner to overcome bad learning
attitude. This learning approach can also enable the student to
benefit from the use of the internet or distance-learning
programs. (Krishnan 2000). The use of internet in passing
literacy skills is very effective. The Internet has a broad range
of topics that a learner can choose, and therefore it expands the
knowledge of the learner. Learning via the Internet is also fun
because there are no complicated and hard to understand

12. techniques involved. Distance learning is also a way of making
reluctant adult learners read. This type of learning uses some
technology component, and therefore more people will be
curious and eager to learn. Online platforms for learning are
very private and confidential than conventional learning
systems. This will help to eradicate the stigma that adult
learners go through in their efforts to gain literacy skills.
Departments in organizations can organize for adult learning for
its employees to increase their productivity in the workplace.
These learning programs are usually organized by human
resource departments. Employees who have literacy issues are
taken care of, and the issue is addressed by organizing learning
programs. It is important to note that literacy for the purpose of
working is the primary goal, but it can also sharpen the general
skills of an individual. The involvement of human resource
departments always brings positive results. However, the most
important way to reduce illiteracy in the society is being united.
(How Illiteracy Can Be Eradicated In Our Society, 2013). It is
up to both the government and the persons responsible for
working together to achieve the goal of eradicating poverty in
the society. Even though many third world countries are in
severe economic problems, the UN, UNICEF, and others are
willing to help in such a course.

13. Statistical Information
According to a study commissioned by Congress in the year
2002, the National Educational Statistics found out nearly 40
million functionally illiterate adults are not able to perform the
basic reading and writing tasks that are required by an
individual to function well in the society. 50 million adults only
have marginal literacy skills. The individuals who have some
literacy skills but they cannot read or write known as the
functionally illiterate.
According to UNESCO, nearly 17% of the world’s total
population is illiterate while two-thirds of these numbers are
women, making gender inequality more evident. Illiteracy
among the youth is also a big challenge. An estimated 122
million youths are illiterate in the world with women
representing 60.7% of this figure.
There are about 67.4 million children out of school who may
experience illiteracy problems in the future due to lack of
primary education.
Another 775 million adults lack the minimum literacy skills in
the world. (Statistics on Literacy, 2015). These figures indicate

14. ha a good number of people in the world are illiterate. The
figures provided by UNESCO are almost perfect because this is
the body of the UN that deals with the societal problems of the
world. The 17% of illiterate people in the world can be reduced
to below 10$ if all the stakeholders unite and decide to fight
against this phenomenon. The 67.4 million children out of
school can be absorbed back into the education system to enable
the gain literacy skills to reduce the number further.
The graph above shows the literate and illiterate world
population from the year 1800 to 2014.
As it is seen, literacy rates grew consistently, but it started to
slow down until the beginning of the twentieth century. The rate
of growth then started climbing after the middle of the 20th
century hen the need for literacy skills became a global priority.
(Roser and 0rtiz-Ospina, 2015). This shows that global literacy
has grown in the last two centuries. The data used to make this
graph was obtained from the data from OECD and UNESCO,
which are global institutions that seek to address the problems
facing the world including, illiteracy.
As the number of illiteracy grows, technological advances make

15. the jobs for people with low literacy skills less available. This
has an adverse effect on the economy of the United States.
Many jobs require literacy skills. Lack of these skills could
cause the cycle of poverty to continue among families. Illiteracy
can also cause lack of competition in the workplace. This will
leave many jobs unfilled due to lack of qualified candidates.
This causes gaps in jobs industry which hinder the economy of
the country.
Future trends.
As this problem persists, it warrants some further study and
research on the topic. First of all, there is an urge to the
programs that work best for the students. These programs must
work best with different cultures. Secondly, there is a need to
study the effectiveness of specific technological programs that
can be used with the illiterate adults. These trends are necessary
for the fight against illiteracy. They need to be introduced at the
community level so that they may help as many people as
possible to gain an education.

16. Conclusion
Adult illiteracy is no longer an issue that can be overlooked or
be thought as the problem of the underprivileged people in
society. There is a need for good education programs in the
world to deal with this issue. There are different strategies that
can be employed to overcome this problem of illiteracy as
discussed above. It takes meeting unique instructional needs and
using current constructive methods to achieve this success. The
problem of illiteracy needs to be addressed by families, nations
and the whole world as a whole. Over 880 million adults are
illiterate in the world. It is assumed that most of these adults
live in the underdeveloped world, but the assumption is wrong.
Many countries have joined in the fight against adult illiteracy,
and if the needed effort is put into the fight, the problem will be
overcome by the
world.

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20. Salome Gichura. (2016). The Turning Point: Free Primary
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