[lg policy] State literacy question

[Joseph Lo Bianco]

Dave,

I don't know about Iran but I can confirm that Sri Lanka has relatively
high rates of literacy, both male and female, but it ins't because of
"political importance attached to Tamil", which if it ever happened I
missed, but rather because mother tongue early education was one
concession won by the main communities decades ago and unlike in other
parts of S Asia has been retained.  There is also in both the main
communities a strong valuing of literacy and ancient literate
traditions.  In fact I compare these literacy rates in a publication on
English and its relation to the national languages and even if the
statistics are a little wobbly the disparity between Sri Lanka and
comparable countries (ie low GDP, war torn etc) on this score is
remarkable. 

Joe



-----Original Message-----
From:
lgpolicy-list-bounces+j.lobianco=unimelb.edu.au at groups.sas.upenn.edu
[mailto:lgpolicy-list-bounces+j.lobianco=unimelb.edu.au at groups.sas.upenn
.edu] On Behalf Of Dave Sayers
Sent: Wednesday, 9 June 2010 12:39 AM
To: Language Policy List
Subject: Re: [lg policy] State literacy question

Guys, guys, enough with censuses and 'UNESCO', whoever they are. I 
direct your attention to the ultimate authority that is Wikipedia, 
according to which Georgia wins with 100%:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate

(On a serious note, if nothing else it might be worth starting with 
Wikipedia, because students do too! Then you could go into the highly 
germane pinches of salt advocated by others so far.)

On a related note, I recall an interesting contrast about literacy rates

and GDP, especially the anomalies. I am wandering out of my depth here 
with the details, so please correct me, but I recall Iran having 
peculiarly low literacy rates for its high GDP, while Sri Lanka has 
contrastingly high literacy for its low GDP - supposedly because of the 
political importance attached to Tamil. I repeat the caveat that my 
memory may have wildly mangled this information; but the general point 
about GDP/literacy contrasts might be a good one to get students
thinking.

Dave

--
Dr. Dave Sayers
Honorary Research Fellow
School of the Environment and Society
Swansea University
d.sayers at swansea.ac.uk
http://swansea.academia.edu/DaveSayers



On 19:59, Emily McEwan-Fujita wrote:
> Has any state government ever claimed to have achieved 100% literacy 
> in an official state language among its population, measurable by a 
> census or other survey? I would highly doubt the claim, but I am 
> interested in the ideologies that would motivate such claims.
>
> Also, can anyone suggest sources that would provide information on 
> which modern states have claimed the highest literacy rates among 
> their populations?
>
> I am looking for cite-able sources, both for an article and for future

> course lectures.
>
> Thank you very much,
>
> Emily McEwan-Fujita
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