It's hard to take things in. It's hard to concentrate. Then you realize for the first time in your life that getting an education is so important. It is ironic that there are hundreds and thousands of group literacy programmes for adults. But the number of illiterates is not diminishing in a significant way.
Illiterates keep producing more and more babies.
The World Bank conducted a study, which showed that literate mothers have a significantly lower number of children. The literate populations could participate more readily in family planning programmes. Illiteracy has been identified as the most important obstacle to development activities such as dealing with the shortage of water, farming, or with sending daughters to school. Illiterates living in far flung villages around the world, seem rather happy with their life. I used to be frustrated at such questions.