Education: at the heart of the fight against illiteracy in Portugal
The alphabet on a blanket in a school.
(Illustrative image) Paul J. Richards / AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
With 5% illiterate, Portugal, a country of 10 million inhabitants, ranks at the bottom of the European table in this area.
Main cause of this illiteracy: work rather than school.
Associations are trying to improve the panorama.
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With our correspondent in Lisbon,
Marie-Line Darcy
Figures from the last census in 2011 reveal the existence of 500,000 illiterates in Portugal.
Armando Loureiro, president of AFEPA (Association for adult education and training), wrings his neck to a ready-made idea.
“
More than a third of these 5% of illiterates work,” he
recalls.
It is a myth that
illiteracy
only affects the elderly.
It's wrong.
People are employed but they cannot read or write.
"
► Also to listen: Illettrism, a daily challenge
Digital, an exclusionary world for the illiterate
For the professor specializing in adult education, the major concern is for the fringe of so-called functional illiterates, who can read but cannot decipher and analyze.
“
Nearly 2.5 million Portuguese are practically illiterate,” he
estimates.
They do not have the minimum baggage to adapt, as for example with the Covid-19, which kept us at home.
It refers to the digital world which is practically inaccessible to them.
"
The lack of autonomy of illiterate people in the digital world is worrying.
AFEPA is mobilized throughout the month of September in favor of literacy.
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