Role of Literacy in Peoples Lives and its Importance

Literacy is a fundamental human right and it is the basis for any individual's ability. It is essential for social and human development and provides skills and empowers us to transform our lives, it improves standard of health and ability to earn a higher income. People who struggling with literacy are more likely to be poor, lack of education is not allowing them to avail an opportunity to participate fully in society's activities. Literacy is so fundamental; it is the essential foundation of education. Literacy is the first step towards freedom, towards liberation from social and economic constraints. It is the prerequisite for development, both individual and society. Literacy helps to spread awareness among the people of their rights. People with good literacy skills enjoy a higher standard of living, have better opportunities of finding jobs, and are able to continue to learn new skills that will help them in the workplace to get promotions. The higher literacy rate gives the higher socio-economic and human development of a nation. Hence, literacy not only empowers individuals, families and communities, but it also reduces poverty and unemployment, it improves quality of life, helps to attain gender equality and ensures peace, democracy and sustainable development. Literacy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts, Literacy allows us to make sense of written, visual and spoken texts including books, newspapers, magazines, timetables, television and radio programs, Literacy is very important for economic development because; literacy develops human resources which are very necessary for the economic development.