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India-Pakistan
Literacy rate up to 54 percent: Aziz
2007-07-03
The literacy rate in the country rose to 54 percent and the gross enrolment rate for primary education improved from 72 percent to 87 percent in 2006, says Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

The net enrolment rate for children between five and nine years and six and 10 years has improved from 42 percent to 50 percent and 51 percent to 61 percent respectively, Aziz said while addressing the first ever convocation of the Foundation University here. He said illiterate nations could not make progress. He said education enhances human capabilities, creates opportunities for individual progress and social mobility.

According to Aziz the most critical difference between the rich and poor nations today is the level of education and the quality of human resource. He congratulated the graduates and praised those who had won distinction for their outstanding performance. “We must build up an education system based on clear objectives reflecting a healthy balance between academic pursuits and extra-curricular activities, natural and social sciences and technical skills and the liberal arts.”
Posted by:Fred

#5  even as late as my youth Catholics were told not to read the Bible themselves, but to have it read to them at Church, so they would not misunderstand it.

Absolutely correct, My wife is catholic, and has NEVER read the bible, the church tells her what it says. (Yeah right, squelch lerning at the source.)
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2007-07-03 17:18  

#4  It wasn't that only clerics could read, Glenmore. There were lots of lovely, illuminated Book of Days in the High Middle Ages for ladies to read in the solarium when they tired of embroidery. It's just that only clerics were systematically taught to read and write... with middling success. There *are* problems with reading scripture literature without context -- that's how Spinoza passed straight through Judaism to atheism without noticing that he missed the turn off. ;-) Part of the problem with the jihadis is that they cleave to the Koran and the most rigid, humanity-rejecting threads of Islam while ignoring the more liberal historical threads. Granted, so has the general thrust of Islam, but still.
Posted by: trailing wife   2007-07-03 09:58  

#3  READING the Koran gains nothing. But the ability to read the Koran means one is also able to read the newspaper or 'Satanic Verses', etc. Literacy doesn't make a person think and learn, but it does enable one to do so. That's why most of the American South forbade teaching slaves to read prior to the Civil War. IIRC, in the Middle Ages only the clerics could read, and they liked it that way - even as late as my youth Catholics were told not to read the Bible themselves, but to have it read to them at Church, so they would not misunderstand it.
Posted by: Glenmore   2007-07-03 08:40  

#2  That it tends to set people free is an unintended consequence.
Possibly, but OTHO, I'm not sure being able to read the k'or'an' will enlighten pakistanis; problem of islam is at its source, and reading the ko'r'an is looking straight at this source.
Posted by: anonymous5089   2007-07-03 07:51  

#1  Education for literacy has historically been about developing the ability to read the holy books - here the Bible, there the Koran. That it tends to set people free is an unintended consequence.
Posted by: Glenmore   2007-07-03 07:32  

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