Online learning

Kelbesa Negusse is the smartest child in the village.

Poverty is rife in Wenchi, Ethiopia. But even though he does not go to school, eight-year-old Kelbesa can already speak and write in English.

For the adults around him, none of whom can read, Kelbesa's progress is nothing short of a miracle. 

Months before, Wenchi became the centre of a MITMassachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, USA, is one of the most most prestigious universities in the world.  research project. The village's children were handed 20 tablet computers. Now they can chant the alphabet in unison.

"The kids have already learned more than they would have in one year of kindergarten," said program director Matt Keller.

This Wednesday is International Literacy DayThis year's theme is Literacy for a human centred recovery: narrowing the digital divide. . Over the past two centuries, the world has made stunning progress on reading and writing. In 1820, only 12% of people worldwide were literate. Today, that figure stands at 86%. 

But that last 14% - roughly 773 million people - is proving hard to reach. Many live in poor countries, without access to education. In Niger, the youth literacy rate stands at 36.5%.

And now the pandemic has exacerbatedMade worse. the problem. In the first half of 2020, school closures disrupted the education of 62% of the world's 1.09 billion students.

In Jharkhand, India, 10-year-old Radhika Kumari has not attended a class for 17 months. Hindi and English used to be her favourite subjects, but now she has forgotten everything.  

There is no doubt: literacy is vitally important. Studies show that reading literary fiction improves both empathyThe capacity to understand and feel the suffering of others. and social perception. 

Learning to read and write can even rewire your brain. In 2017, German researchers taught a group of Indian adults to read and write for the first time. Six months later, scans measured increased activity deep within their brains, in regionsBrain scans showed that learning to read changed activity in the cortex, an outer layer of the brain associated with learning, but also portions of the thalamus and brainstem.  associated with coordinating information and controlling attention.

"Literacy supplies a whole mode of thought," declares one Guardian editorialA newspaper article expressing the opinion of the editor on a specific issue. . "The purpose of universal literacy is to make better people, capable of richer lives, and able to fully enter into society, in dialogue not just with their contemporaries but with the community of everyone who has written in the languages they speak."

For some, projects like the one in Wenchi are the way forward. In 2010, just two billion people worldwide had internet access. Now, a decade on, nearly five billion people are online, and the majority are social media users. The incentive to read, and connect with the rest of the world, is stronger than ever.

But others think that the internet is a hindrance, not a help. Reading fiction may improve empathy, but the number of American adults who read at least one work of literature per year fell to a three decade low in 2015.

Meanwhile, this August, China banned children from online gaming for more than three hours per week. Far from improving literacy, digital distractions like gaming were becoming a "spiritual opium", state media declared.

Is the internet helping more people read?

Of course, say some. The internet is the world's greatest equaliser. Today, more people are online than ever before. For children around the world, the internet - and the world of information it provides - is both a motivator and a learning tool. Now, the pandemic has only highlighted its importance. If the internet revolution continues as forecast, illiteracy will soon be a thing of the past. 

Definitely not, say others. In 2019, billionaire philanthropistSomeone who donates generously to good causes. American philanthropy has been very important in creating a positive image of the US around the world. Bill Gates shared his master plan for achieving global literacy: hiring more primary school teachers. The old fashioned approach works, and it does not need changing. Learning to read and write requires a book and a pen. The internet, with its never ending stream of games and videos, is nothing more than an unwelcome distraction.