What Are The Bad Effects Of Illiteracy?

There are two main negative effects of illiteracy and they include detriment to health as well as poverty.

• What is illiteracy?

Illiteracy is defined as not being able to read and write which affects many people; the number of people incapable of reading or writing in a certain area or country is known as the illiteracy rate. If a person is illiterate then they may not be able to do certain things and they may also suffer from psychological effects of illiteracy.

• What illiteracy affects: Health

As mentioned above a lack of ability within reading and writing can affect an individual's mental state, especially if they have suffered bullying because of this. In most cases the majority of people think that those who cannot read or write are stupid, which can have a detrimental effect on the mind. In addition, when people are suffering from an illness and seek treatment, sometimes they are not confident enough to go to a clinic because they will not be able to fill out forms if they are illiterate. Moreover, someone who suffers from illiteracy will not be able to read the appropriate dosage that is printed on the bottle.

• Poverty

In terms of poverty, illiteracy can be a big contributing factor. This affects education in a huge way because if a child does not have the ability to read and write throughout their education then they will not be able to go to a college in the future and perhaps get a career in the field that they wish. Moreover, within the majority of jobs, a degree of reading and writing is necessary so if a person cannot do this they have a lesser chance of getting the job as opposed to someone who has those abilities in literacy.

Availability of education and literacy rate of a nation represents its contribution in the development of a country. The number of literate and educated people helps in building a nation better then the illiterate ones. They understand the complexity of the matters and also come up with the solutions of the problems instead of creating of problems. Disadvantages of illiteracy can be many in general but here are the few prominent and most hurting one
1. Crime Rate
2. Low Health
3. Loss of productivity

Crime Rate
It's been observed that crimes committed by illiterate ones are more in number as compared to the literate ones. Because uneducated people have no skill in their hand nor they have education to earn money. So it seems easy to them to commit a crime because it's the easiest way to earn money. So illiteracy gives birth to crime.

Low Health Issues
As illiterate people are unaware of the hygienic factors and personal hygiene matters so they are often caught up by different diseases. Their self carelessness results in low health which leads to the major complications later on. It might be disadvantage in some cases.

Loss of Productivity, Resources and Time
As these illiterate people some times does not understand the value of time so they waste their useful time in time wasting activities instead of utilizing some where else where this time could yield some results. Also the illiterate people utilize more number of country's resources then literate one. So which cause them burden on Government's shoulder.

So every country whether its developed, underdeveloped or developing country try to increase the number of educated people in its nation by making education free and motivating people to come for education instead of heading some where else. From child education program to Adult learning program Government tries to put their all the efforts to increase the literacy rate of its country. To make their citizen productive and skilled for the betterment of their country.