Focus on Education: Literacy: An important weapon to NMI economic strength Part II By: Antony Pellegrino

Seventy-five percent unemployed adults have reading or writing difficulties. Over 60% of front-line workers in the goods-producing industry have difficulty applying information from a text to a required task. In the CNMI low literacy is one of the major complain aired by the hospitality and garment industry. Both industries lament that many adults have such a low literacy level that it is difficult to train them. To our shame, many non-resident workers have a fairly higher level of literacy than some of us.

In the US, workers lacking a high school diploma earn less than 25% of those with bachelor’s degrees. This means that workers lacking a high school diploma earn a mean monthly income of $452, compared to $1,829 for those with a bachelor’s degree–a difference of $1.327 less per month or $15.924 less per year!

In the US, 43% of adults with low literacy skills live in poverty as compared with less than 5% of those with high level skills. The National Adult Literacy Survey in 1993 found that nearly half of America’s adults are poor readers, or “functionally illiterate.” They can’t carry out simple tasks like balancing check books, reading drug labels or writing applications for a job.

Another study found that 21 million Americans can’t read at all, 45 million are marginally illiterate, and one-fifth of high school graduates can’t read their diploma. 85% of unwed mothers are illiterate, and 68% of those arrested are illiterate. About three in five of prison inmates are illiterate. The facts cuntinue.

The results are in–if we have a low literacy level, we have resigned our self to a low paying and a low level job. We are trapped. This situation is not only in the Vnited States. However in the U.S. there are millions of people to select from while in the CNMI the selection is not too large. In the CNMI the literacy problem is quite serious.

As members of our community we must become concerned otherwise we indirectly doom ourselves to the same fate that the illiterates have doomed themselves to. Business will not be able to hire efficient resident employees. Government will continue to operate with low level educated staff. From necessity the CNMI will continue to depend on nonresident workers.

The government is begging private business to hire residents and train them? How can a person be trained to read, write and compute if he has not made any effort to improve his literacy? Is he willing to invest his time and effort? Businesses are not substitutes for schools. Dedicated programs to improve adult literacy must be set up and employees must be motivated to attend them.

Who shall do this job? Unfortunately it falls on the shoulders of the government and private businesses because no one else has so much at stake. The government joining with the private sector must create opportunities to educate adults who possess low literacy levels. There is no shame for having low literacy. The shame lies in not doing something about it. The problem is real and imminent.

Changing economic, demographic, and labormarket forces are creating a human capital and skills deficit that threatens our economic prosperity in the CNMI. We must develop basic skills and literacy in our limited labor force. It is a smart investment. If we fail to act now the future remains bleak for our community. The era of military domination has been largely replaced by economic domination. To the learned ones goes the spoils. Literacy is the important weapon to economic success.