Twenty First Century literacy

The literacy month has dawned. The International Book Fair at the BMICH is drawing record crowds. Thirst for knowledge is evident. Hence, it would not be inappropriate to dwell upon the subject of literacy. To be specific, our attention here is on the type of literacy that would be required for our citizens to live in the Twenty First Century. As everything else literacy also changes with time. Not only its content but also its quality changes or develops since human knowledge is on an ever ascending curve.

Sri Lanka has a commendable high literacy rate. That, however, means over 90 percent of Sri Lankans have the ability to read, write and comprehend in their mother tongue. As we have stressed in our columns repeatedly this is inadequate. We need bilingual literacy for most of our citizens in the Twenty First Century. That is literacy in the mother tongue and English language literacy. The ideal objective goes much further. It seeks trilingual literacy, as the President said some weeks ago.

In the modern world basic literacy is not enough. One should also have functional literacy. That involves what is called technical literacy. It is not necessary to emphasize that everyone should necessarily have simple mechanical and electronic knowledge even to handle kitchen equipment. Technical knowledge is required in every sphere of activity. This is nothing new. It was required throughout history. What is new is that in today's society we need much advanced technical knowledge compared to that our ancestors and their ancestors had.

If Sri Lanka is to attain the status of a developed country it has to overcome a great divide known as the digital divide. The development of Information Communication Technology (ICT) has widened the gap between the development levels of rich and poor or advanced and developing nations. Incidentally we could use the same ICT to leap-frog to developed status as it provides a quicker way to advance using the latest technology. The use of nanotechnology and biotechnology are examples.

In order to be able to use modern technology, a primary need is the development of necessary human resources. We should invest much more in education, science, research and development. Unfortunately our resource allocations in these spheres are woefully inadequate. Sri Lankans are famous for their talent. What they lack are resources to develop their talents. This would require a complete overhaul of the University system. Our Universities hardly do any substantial research. Perhaps they are cash strapped. Or the academia are going after private tuition. Perhaps they could pool their material and human resources as well as join industry in conducting research. In neighbouring India some Universities are conducting joint research and even sending sputniks to orbit the Earth. We could also go for regional cooperation with centres of excellence in the region. The poverty of our research and development (R & D) is seen from the dismally little number of patents we register annually.

If we are to leap-frog to developed country status we have to stop the brain drain and encourage reverse brain drain. Incentives and encouragement should be given to those who stay to serve the Motherland and to those who wish to return.

In developing human resources access to the Internet is very important. This could be done in three ways. The first and essential task is to make the Internet accessible at school and village levels. A beginning has been made through Vidatha centres and computer laboratories in schools. Second is the widespread teaching of English, the principal language of the Internet. There too the Presidential Task Force on English and IT has taken the initiative and a commendable program of teaching teachers is currently running. Third is to guarantee access to the Internet through the mother tongue, i.e. in Sinhala and Tamil. In this sense Tamil has a better reach as the software has been developed in both Sri Lanka and India. Though there is a limited access to the Internet in Sinhala it has to be developed.

There is an urgent need to develop software to translate from English to Sinhala and Tamil. Such translation software has been developed in other countries for their local languages. The Official Languages Commission and the Presidential Task Force on English and IT should undertake this task in association with our University academics and other experts.

What makes a country competitive in the world market is higher or superior technology. Superior technology could lower the cost of production and make our commodities competitive in the world market. We must develop research and find ways and means of introducing new production technology to at least a few of our principal industries. Simply exporting more would not suffice. Though our physical volume of exports may rise the value gained will be less since developed countries and our competitors with their superior technology could sell the same commodities at lower prices.