Functional Illiteracy and how The French have been coping with it

Abstract

Dušana Findeisen discusses functional literacy pointing out how difficult it is to define this term. She claims that all we can do is to describe various characteristic forms of this personal and social dysfunction. This dysfunction, however, is subject to changes dependent on those occurring in the cultural environment and in social development. Referring to language she stresses that an illiterate person draws his/her experiences and his thoughts from the narrow social environment and, consequently, it is easy to understand that such a person is afraid of wider social contexts. In this field, education and its organisation remain thoroughly dependent on people to be “educated” and on those who are willing to participate in their own “education” , Moreover, there is a need to educate the educators, be they fully employed professionals or volunteers. This, however, does not mean that they can be subject to rules imposed on them or controlled in any way. All we can do is to respect them. The author also stresses that, as in France, political will is necessary in searching for solutions to this great social evil, both in prevention and in cure.