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Rahima is a mother of five living in Pakistan’s province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Her youngest is only 2 years old, and the eldest is 16. Her husband and her eldest son frequently travel between Malakand in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Karachi in Sindh in search of work and economic activities. Rahima keeps in contact with her family using her hand me down smartphone, frequently sending them messages using WhatsApp, her favourite application, and using video-calling software equivalent to Skype and FaceTime to keep her husband and eldest son updated on the newest antics of the younger children and more often daily problems at home.
Rahima has never attended school or a literacy program, but she has taught herself many necessary skills. She can not only use her smartphone for calls and text messages, but also to check whether she has received cash transfers from the government, such as the secondary school stipend for her daughter who is currently in Grade 7, get notified about social events and even keep up-to-date with news and pop-culture. Her daughter will occasionally make her listen to famous songs, such as Zeb Bangash’s Paimona[1] which is now Rahima’s ringtone. Rahima also listens to many programs on the radio, especially the ones on crops and beauty tips. She has even become somewhat of an expert on solar panels, knowing exactly which brands to purchase, their costs and how often to get them serviced; ofcourse she has installed solar panels in her own home as a response to the frequent power-cuts in her hometown. Her home also contains a washing machine; she can fully operate the machine by herself. In addition to all this, Rahima made her CNIC in 2009, the smartcard to keep her engaged as an active citizen of Pakistan, allowing her to vote and granting her access to many facilities and various government schemes
Reflecting on the recently commemorated International Literacy Day (8th September), how would you classify Rahima? Do you consider her literate, semi-literate or illiterate?[2] Does her empowerment come by default or by design? I wonder how the recent 6th Population Census recently completed in 2017 would classify her. Are people finding increasing spaces for self-empowerment? Does the informal economy have a strong parallel to tech-based learning and access to both formal and informal services?
When there are ‘man’-made reasons for keeping the majority of the population deprived of the essentials, the citizens rise to the occasion, especially in these times that are digitally active, providing enabling solutions at very low costs. Rahima is not an anomaly in her empowerment. She symbolizes many women and citizens of Pakistan that are seeking solutions intelligently with the help of contemporary gadgets, technologies and connectivity, making communication possible through multiple means and breaking the silence of deprivation and isolation.
The ASER (rural) 2016 data collected at the household level (84,000+ households) across Pakistan reveals the following with respect to the use of technology, access to alternative energy and social safety nets at the household level
ASER Rural 2016 (HH covered 84,000)
Cell phones in Rural areas: 70%
SMS: 56%
WhatApp: 26%
Computers/Laptops: 17%
Solar Panels: 20%
Social Safety Nets: 18%
Registered Female voters: 87%
Registered Male voters: 93%
The question remains, are schools and teachers as active on self-learning as Rahima is in a remote district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa? Does the school nearby, which her daughter attends, use the same strategies and tools as Rahima does to overcome problems and isolation, embracing empowerment and progress through unchartered personal pathways? It is this gap that needs to be bridged between households and schools for active learning. There is an urgency to reflect on definitions and practices of literacy straddling across homes and formal places of learning, in an effort to liberate ourselves from the notions of ‘rigid formal definitions’ that are perhaps not relevant today. With telescoping leapfrog assistive technologies that fuse binaries of tradition and modernity seamlessly, we need to seriously revisit classifications and boundaries of who is literate and who is not; new literacy codes that work need to be re-written in the 21st century-this must begin urgently mapping learning points to a spectrum of measurable competencies.
The ASER 2016 rural data shows that our Rahimas are everywhere across Pakistan, from Malakand to Mardan to Muzaffargarh to Mand to Matiari, just waiting to be discovered as 21st century neo-literates skipping stages of traditional linear learning. Our Rahimas are discovering new tech-enabled spaces, stitching their own unique learning ‘rillies’ or bespoke patchwork quilts, measured in perfect geometrical coloured shapes, recycled and fit for multiple purposes.
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[1]Popular Folk Song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wIRNkE0uXY
[2] New Definition of Literacy in 6th Population & Housing Census: New definition Adopted by Govt. of Pakistan
“Ability to read and understand simple text in any language from a newspaper or magazine, write a simple letter and per- form basic mathematical calculation (i.e. counting and addition/subtraction).”
Definition used in the 1998 census, “A person was treated as literate if he could read a newspaper or a journal and could write a simple letter in any language.”
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Baela Raza Jamil is also CEO Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi /ITA, Pakistan, Member of the PAL Network Steering Committee and serves as a Commissioner for the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity (The Education Commission). The Education Commission is engaging world leaders, policymakers, and researchers to develop a renewed and compelling investment case and financing pathway for achieving equal educational opportunity for children and young people. Baela Raza Jamil can be reached at email: itacec@gmail.com