Survey of Experience with Educated Functionally Illiterate

Do you have any experience of educated but functionally illiterate person? Definitely, you do have as there are millions of functionally illiterate around us. Please share your experience in this survey.

Background
Many definitions are available on functionally illiterate and one of them is "a person with some basic education who still falls short of a minimum standard of literacy or whose reading and writing skills are inadequate to everyday needs". In day to day functioning we discover some people who have completed their formal literacy education but in reality unable to comprehend what they read or unable to express their thought in writing. Many university students both undergraduate and postgraduate unable to write an idea or have difficulties in under¬standing the ideas of a text. According to the UNESCO report, "no country is immune to functional illiteracy".

My Experience
I cite following four events of my experience with functionally illiterate persons. The first two events were with the bank officers of the top rated and highly reputed banks regarding account opening and change of address. I filled the prescribed account opening form according to the instructions on the form and submitted to the concerned officer for further process. The officer gave it back that the last page, which is titled with "Additional Information (Optional)", is blank. Yes, I left it blank intentionally because it is optional. But the officer ordered me to fill it. When unable to convince or teach meaning of 'optional' word, I followed the order as I was in need of the bank account. I received triple rewards from the officer by a pat, a big smile and the account for my obedience, quick learning skill and in particular for the illiterate act. In another occasion, when I submitted change of address form to the bank I received reply, what is the meaning of this process as you have bank cards and Internet banking facility with the account. Unaware of how to convince and in this case when the officer was none other than the Branch Manager, simply I gave an intent look. In response, the manager gave me a sarcastic look for my foolishness and a prizewinning smile on her intelligence. I cursed me a lot why I tried and started to think how to redirect the bank posts.

The second pair of events was with a shopkeeper and mobile service provider regarding mobile connection form and email enquiry. The shopkeeper returned the form when I submitted for mobile connection. He was asking me to fill the part where I had written ‘not applicable’. It was the part titled with "Please fill form 60/61 (whichever applicable) given below in case you do not have PAN/GIR No.". Form 60 to be filled by a person who does not have either a PAN or GIR number. Form 61 to be filled by a person who has agricultural income. I told him that I have already provided PAN and do not have income from agricultural business. But he was persistence that he has processed thousands of such forms. I also took stand and explained him thoroughly why I am refusing to do so. He reluctantly accepted my form. I was happy being able to prevent an illiterate act but unaware of the consequences. I started enjoying new mobile connection. After a week one morning all of a sudden I was unable to call or receive any phone calls. The day was one of the busy and mobile-dependent day as I was expecting a call from overseas, two calls from the event organising committees, two calls from the friends regarding important matters and a call from an unknown courier company regarding delivery of household goods. I went to the shopkeeper. He phoned immediately to the mobile service provider but in vain. The shopkeeper assured me that he will take care of the matter. He also raised a doubt indirectly that it may be because of the unique form with ‘not applicable’ in forms 60 and 61. Now what? Instead of the busy, productive and mobile-dependent day, the day became one the worst and unique by its own way as I spent most of the time inside a cubicle of a public telephone shop for calling overseas, the organising committees and the friends, reaching to the unknown courier company and obviously for follow-up with the mobile service provider. When there was no sign of life in my mobile, in the evening, I sent an email to the customer service with relevant details, such as mobile number, name and address. Next day morning I received reply. While opening email I was happy that the quick reply shows more likely resolution of the problem and was thanking to the inventors of Internet and email. The email was saying "Thanks for your email regarding … ... ... ... but please send us following information.
Customer Name:
Mobile Number:
Address:
… ".
Wow! What is this? I already sent the information. I checked my email. Then I was able to appreciate the company’s commitment towards customers as they were not simply promising but were putting it in practice too their motto of better customer-centred services. You see, what mistake I did, I provided my mobile number first but they need customer name first. You see! When I didn’t have any words to express my gratitude for their approach, I simply provided the information asked in the sequence by controlling myself that by mistake I may write "Please read my email carefully I have already provided the required information". Then I missed even pleasure of receiving any reply of my emails but enjoyed my patient for a few days. After restoring the mobile services, the shopkeeper told me that he has done some paper work on behalf of me but I didn’t have courage to ask what type of paper work!

Appeal for Participation
Please contribute by taking part and encouraging your friends to take part in this survey by writing your experience with functionally illiterate in the space below for comment. You are welcome to write as many as events you want. Thanks in anticipation.

beyondblue in Curriculum: A Preventive Measure for Depression and Related Disorders

Background
There is no health without mental health but mental and neurological disorders, such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and epilepsy, are common worldwide including substances abuse, alcohol and drugs use disorders. Estimates made by World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2004 showed that about 450 million people globally suffer from mental and behavioural disorders and one person in four will develop one or more of these disorders during their lifetime.1 Stigma about mental disorders and fear of discrimination increase suffering and vulnerability of the individuals and families affected by mental disorders and then suffering become intense and pervasive. Higher levels of stigma and fear of discrimination prevail more in urban areas and among people with higher levels of education. The myths and misconceptions associated with the disorders, such as a public survey in South Africa showed that most people thought mental illnesses are associated to stress or a lack of willpower than medical disorders (http://www.who.int/mental_health), make conditions worse.

About half of mental disorders begin before the age of 14. Table 1 shows rate of mental disorders in young people ranged from 8% in the Netherlands to 57% in service recipients in San Diego, California, USA.

Table 1 source: Patel Vikram, Flisher Alan J, Hetrick Sarah and McGorry Patrick. Mental health of young people: a global public-health challenge. Lancet 2007; 369: 1302-1313.

There is sufficient evidence that mental health problems are increasing worldwide. The report based on the work by WHO and the World Bank states that by the year 2020 depression will be the second largest cause of global disease burden. In addition to the affected people’s suffering, stigma and discrimination, mental disorders may influence overall society in terms of reduced or lost productivity, expenditure for treatment, support, education as well as criminal justice due to mental disorders. The global burden of mental disorders is well beyond the treatment capacities. The social and economic expenditure associated with this growing burden will not be reduced by the treatment of mental disorders alone.2 Many promotional, educational, awareness and preventive programs are needed; preventive interventions can be a cost-effective and an essential step to prevent or address mental disorders or problems.

Preventive Interventions
Several reviews and analysis have established that prevention programs produce significant benefit by reducing the rates of future social, behavioural and academic problems. Durlak and Wells3,4 found significant mean effects ranging from 0.24 to 0.93 according to program type and target population by reviewing about 177 universal prevention studies. One of the promising universal interventions is Zippy’s Friends program designed to help children in the first years of school and to develop the necessary skills for life-long emotional well-being.5

Neil and Christensen report a review of twenty four efficacy or effectiveness trials of nine Australian intervention programs.6 The FRIENDS program and Resourceful Adolescent Program (RAP) were effective with the strongest evidence. The six trials targeting anxiety for evaluating the FRIENDS program, an anxiety prevention program for children from 7 to 16 years of age, reported lower anxiety immediately or at follow-up. The ten of the seventeen universal trials for depression reported positive outcomes. For randomised controlled trials of universal programs, 50% of trials targeting depression and 57% of trials targeting anxiety produced positive outcomes.6 The FRIENDS is a cognitive-behavioural program of 10 sessions that teaches children skills to cope with anxiety more effectively and builds emotional resilience, problem-solving abilities and self-confidence.7 The evaluation of the RAP, a school-based resilience building program, showed a two thirds reduction in depressive symptoms.8 MindMatters takes an organisational approach and provides a strategy to promote children’s mental health and well-being through all dimensions of the school environment.

In Australia, several other initiatives, such as the beyondblue schools research initiative, the KidsMatter initiative and the Aussie Optimism Program, have been performed to address student mental health. The beyondblue schools research initiative was a universal intervention program designed to reduce depressive symptoms experienced by the students at secondary school. The initiative has been investigated by annual assessments during the three-year intervention program followed by a two-year follow-up. Twenty-five pairs of high schools were assigned to an intervention and a comparison group across Queensland, South Australia and Victoria. The classroom curriculum was a sequential thirty-session program delivered in three years during Year 8, 9 and 10. The curriculum was delivered by the teachers who completed one day's professional development program. Sawyer Michael et al.9,10 observe that the students experienced negligible changes in the levels of depressive symptoms. It is disappointing that the intervention failed to achieve significant change in the levels of depression despite of obvious strengths and benefits of the project. The assessments on quality parameters of delivery are hard to find as it is a most dependable factor for success of any teaching program. A trial of KidsMatter initiative was carried out in hundred and one primary schools. The analysis by Slee et al.11 revealed variations in the quality of implementation across schools and significant differences in the involvement and support of parents, staff and school leadership. The Aussie Optimism Program, a 20-week universal mental health promotion program based on cognitive–behavioural intervention procedures, was delivered to Year 8 students of three schools in Brisbane. The results show the program was beneficial to the students who were experiencing emotional and behavioural difficulties.12

A number of school-based intervention programs produce positive outcomes. WHO13 has published thirty five case studies of mental health promotion programs, initiatives and strategies from nineteen countries so that organisations can use in their own communities and countries. However, even highly regarded programs also need further evaluation considering local social, economic and environmental contexts before implementation.

Epilogue
There is sufficient evidence that ecological interventions programs in schools, for enhancing cognitive, problem-solving and social-emotional skills of children and adolescents, can influence positive mental health and reduce emotional and behavioural problems. However, an intervention program alone is insufficient; schools, teachers and parents have to pay more attention to giving children the skills they need not only to pass the exams but also to live balance, happy, proactive, productive and fulfilled lives. It is clear that schools remain central to impart life skills including planning, opting for alternative right paths, conflict resolution, time management, anger management, stress management and grief and bereavement management. However, life skills have to conceal in side entire school-based curriculum, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities so that each child by default acquire minimum skills to live balance, happy and fulfilled lives. The programs with positive psychology approach can be incorporated in school curriculum for the development of resilience, such as adaptive thoughts, behaviours and problem-solving.

References

1. World Health Organization. Prevention of mental disorders: effective interventions and policy options, a report of the World Health Organization Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse in collaboration with the Prevention Research Centre of the Universities of Nijmegen and Maastricht. 2004.
2. World Health Organization. Promoting mental health: concepts, emerging evidence, practice, a report of the World Health Organization, Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse in collaboration with the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation and the University of Melbourne. Editors: Helen Herrman, Shekhar Saxena, Rob Moodie. 2005.
3. Durlak JA and Wells AM. Primary prevention mental health programs for children and adoelscents: a meta-analytic review. Am J Community Psychology 1997; 25: 115-152.
4. Durlak JA and Wells AM. Evaluation of indicated preventive intervention (secondary intervention) mental health programs for children and adolescents. Am J Community Psychology 1998; 26: 775-802.
5. Mishara BL and Ystgaard M. Effectiveness of a mental health promotion program to improve coping skills in young children: Zippy’s Friends. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 2006; 21: 110-123.
6. Neil Alison L and Christensen Helen. Australian school-based prevention and early intervention programs for anxiety and depression: a systematic review. MJA 2007; 186: 305-308.
7. Barrett Paula M, Farrell Lara J, Ollendick Thomas H and Dadds Mark. Long-Term Outcomes of an Australian Universal Prevention Trial of Anxiety and Depression Symptoms in Children and Youth: An Evaluation of the Friends Program. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology 2006, 35: 403–411.
8. Shochet IM, Dadds MR, Holland D, Whitefield K, Harnett PH and Osgarby SM. The efficacy of a universal school-based program to prevent adolescent depression. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology 2001; 30: 303-315.
9. Sawyer Michael G, Harchak Taylor F, Spence Susan H, Bond Lyndal, Graetz Brian, Kay Debra, Patton George and Sheffield Jeanie. School-based Prevention of Depression: A 2-Year Follow-up of a Randomized Controlled Trial of the beyondblue Schools Research Initiative. Journal of Adolescent Health 2010.
10. Sawyer Michael G, Pfeiffer Sara, Spence Susan H, Bond Lyndal, Graetz Brian, Kay Debra, Patton George and Sheffield Jeanie. School-based prevention of depression: a randomised controlled study of the beyondblue schools research initiative. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 2009; 51: 199-209.
11. Slee PT, Lawson MJ, Russell A, Askell-Williams H, Dix KL, Owens L, Skrzypiec G and Spears B. KidsMatter Primary Evaluation Final Report. Centre for Analysis of Educational Futures, Flinders University of South Australia. 2009.
12. Swannell Sarah, Hand Matthew and Martin Graham. The Effects of a Universal Mental Health Promotion Programme on Depressive Symptoms and Other Difficulties in Year Eight High School Students in Queensland, Australia. Journal School Mental Health 2009; 1: 229-239.
13. World Health Organization. Mental health promotion: case studies from countries, A Joint Publication of the World Federation for Mental Health and the World Health Organization. Editors: Shekhar Saxena and Preston J. Garrison. 2004.