| How to Advance Rural Elderly Literacy | |||
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| Author | Ma, Sangjin | ||
| Views | 101584 | Publication Date | 2019.02.26 |
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The purpose of this study is to analyze rural elderly people's literacy and investigate how to advance their literacy level. This study examined the relation between such literacy level and quality of life, and suggested the effective educational policies to improve the literacy level in the rural community. For this purpose, this study analyzed relevant research, existing statistics, professional conferences, personal interviews, case studies, and the questionnaire survey. First, this study analyzed elderly people's literacy level in the rural community by defining literacy and developing the measures to evaluate literacy level by analyzing previous literature. Existing statistics and the survey data in this study showed that literacy education was necessary for about 58% of elderly people in the rural community that was two or three times more than those in the urban area. It also indicated that one-third of rural elderly people with a low literacy level experienced difficulties in using public services that a regular person can use without difficulty. Second, this study examined the relation between elderly people’s literacy level and their quality of life in the rural community by evaluating the effect of literacy level on participation in social activities, health status, and quality of life. The econometric analysis with the survey and the existing statistical data showed that elderly people with a high literacy level were more likely to obtain social support, use public services, and care about political events than those with a low literacy level. It also indicated that the high literacy level improved mental health condition, financial status, and their quality of life. In addition, functional literacy was the more significant factor to improve their quality of life than basic literacy. Furthermore, this study analyzed the supply of literacy education to eradicate illiteracy in the rural community by investigating the literacy education policy of the central and local governments. The analysis showed that 96% of people with a low literacy level in the rural community had never received literacy education, although there was high demand for it. One of the reasons for the low participation would be inappropriate educational interventions by government that failed to meet the demand in the rural community. Another reason would be the restricted access to literacy education service in the rural community, such as insufficient education information, fear of being late, health problems, and insufficient time for the education. In addition, this study analyzed the factors in activating literacy education by visiting well-managed and ill-managed literacy education programs and comparing such governments. The comparison between these two government groups showed that the local governments with well-managed literacy education programs had the sufficient amount of investment in literacy education. They founded laws to construct the effective governmental system to support literacy education. However, the local governments with ill-managed literacy education programs failed to realize the importance of literacy education, despite many prospective consumers. These governments were not interested in founding laws for literacy education and did not have a motivation to invest public funds in literacy education. Finally, based on the analysis result and the relevant best practices, this study suggests the basic direction and practical measures of governmental policy for higher literacy level. For the basic direction, the governments need to set goals to strengthen the responsibility of the central and local governments, support lifetime capacity development programs as well as literacy education, and develop the literacy education policy fit for the elderly people the rural community. Educational authorities also need to support the link between basic literacy education and advanced/applied literacy education and provide the rural community with an effective policy that satisfies the educational demand in the rural community. For the practical measure of public policy, this study suggested the governmental system that supports the easy Korean campaign, improves quality of life in the rural community, constructs a statistical database for literacy in the rural community, develops literacy textbooks for rural elderly people, proposes systematic education programs for teachers, and discovers the demand for literacy education. Researchers: Ma Sangjin, An Sok, Kim Namhoon Research period: 2018. 1. ~ 2018. 10. E-mail address: msj@krei.re.kr |
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