LITERACY AND CONSCIENTIZATION IN PAULO FREIRE'S PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION

By Dr. -M.B.M. Avoseh

ABSTRACT Illiteracy and ignorance have been said to be major contributing factor to most of the problem of the Third world. While it may not be easy to establish a direct logical casual link, it is an incontrovertible fact that there is a close relationship between illiteracy, ignorance, political apathy and underdevelopment. In response to the challenge of illiteracy and underdevelopment latter-day educators have come up with different solution to the problem. All the solution pivot on education especially literacy education. Paulo Freire saw the solution to the problem as going beyond literacy for reading and witting sake to include the creation of critical consciousness. Conscientization and literacy are thus coincidental in Freires philosophy. Paulo Freires thought was influence largely by the socio-economic and political situations of his native Brazil. These same ugly and dehumanizing conditions are now available to a generous degree in Nigeria. Hence Freires education as the practice of freedom is very relevant to the Nigeria situation.

INTRODUCTION
Most of the social, economic and political problems in the Third World e said to have their root in the intractable problem of illiteracy. The ugly level of illiteracy in Nigeria for instance is said to be mainly responsible for the problems of political apathy, ignorance, disease, partition, poverty, political instability and underdevelopment, among tiers. Most governments have come to realize the need for literacy as a y of tackling the problems rooted in illiteracy. The Nigeria government for instance, realizes the important role of literacy in individual and national development. Efforts have therefore been directed at mass literacy education at different levels of government. The directorate for Social Mobilization (MAMSER) among other agencies of government, has been created to address the situation. MAMSER'S three main programmes are: i) Mass Mobilization for self-reliance, social justice and economic recovery. ii) Political education, iii) Mass education. This effort is an acknowledgement of the need for literacy education to be integrated with the creation of consciousness. This takes literacy - education beyond the level of the 3RS. A careful observation of the literacy programmes in Nigeria so far reveals that the slant has been towards reading, writing and arithmetic. UNESCO'S functional literacy was introduced to improve on the traditional literacy method. In spite of these efforts, the problem of illiteracy appears intractable. Besides, the social ills which literacy education was supposed to eradicate are still with us to a generous degree. This paper advances the argument that literacy education limited to the 3RS or even to UNESCO'S functional method has not been able to help Nigeria sufficiently well. Our thesis is that the methods above lack the consciousness creating elements which would empower the people to take charge of the adverse situations around them. Drawing exclusively from Freire's philosophy of education, the paper concludes that the need for the integration of literacy education with consciousness-arousal is paramount for the Nigerian situation.

LITERACY AND CONSCIENTIZATION

The need to empower the illiterate population through literacy v education and consciousness arousal becomes pronounced everyday. The reasons for this are not far fetched. In the first place illiterates in Nigeria are in the majority. According to the director of mass education under MAMSER, Alhaji Aji (1986:52) there has been an estimate of 56 million illiterates in Nigeria, and the figure may read 60 million by the year 2000. These are those who suffer most from the ills which are the unintended products of illiteracy. They are at a disadvantage in almost every aspect of the nations life. They are the direct victims of poverty, hunger, disease, ignorance, political apathy and violence. It is in this sense that illiterates are described as "undernourished" because they lack "the bread of the spirit" (Freire 1985:45). In the technical sense, illiteracy has gained prominence as a world problem. It is in this dehumanizing sense that UNESCO first recognised the concept. It is in this denotative sense that a connection has been

established between mass illiteracy and poverty, ignorance, disease, famine, oppression, and exploitation. It is in this sense that Fordham (1983:12) concluded that: The illiterates are at a clear disadvantage when they try to participate in either the world of work or the world where decisions are made. "They are increasingly dependent on others and denied access to written cultures or to further education: above all, they are not able to make a full contribution to the life and work of any nation. In this respect both the illiterate individual or a society "bedeviled" by mass illiteracy "not only suffers most from the debilitating effects of illiteracy but also receives the heaviest economic and social blows resulting from being illiterate (Alemayehu: 1988:289). It is not only the illiterates who suffer from these ills imposed by illiteracy. The larger society also suffers in the area of development. If the majority of the population belong to the club of illiterates then it would be difficult to accelerate^, it would be difficult for technological advancement to take off. The socio-political areas would be affected by the people's apathy and ignorance.The need for literacy education therefore becomes imperative. However the problems which illiteracy has introduced have grown larger than society. It is therefore not sufficient to try to eradicate these problems by merely teaching people to read and write. Any attempt to eradicate the dehumanizing phenomenon of illiteracy must be drastic and liberative. It is in this respect that literacy limited to the 3Rs or even to UNESCO'S functional method becomes too week to tackle the problem. Literacy limited to this mechanical and functional level will only be feeble attempts at a proper solution. In this respect, illiterates must be empowered beyond reading and writing to be able to tackle the problems. Again Aji (1988:52) puts this point succinctly: In a country such as ours, mass poverty, hunger, disease, ignorance, unemployment and a host of domesticating problems could only be eliminated when people were given the weapons to .do so, since literacy was not merely acquisition of the rudiments of the letters and numbers. The "weapons" which Aji refers to in his speech are the empowering elements which incorporate consciousness arousal. The reference to conscientization takes literacy from the narrow "meal-ticket" and mechanistic confines to make it a liberating agent of transformation. It is in the sense of literacy as a liberating force that Paulo Freire's method of conscientization becomes relevant. It is not only the illiterates who suffer from these ills imposed by illiteracy. The larger society also suffers in the area of development. If the majority of the population belong to the club of illiterates then it would be difficult to accelerate*, it would be difficult for technological advancement to take off. The socio-political areas would be affected by the people's apathy and ignorance.

Towards a Freirean Alternative

What makes Freire's literacy method unique and liberating is the element of conscientization. Conscientization for Freire is a critical attempt to make man especially the marginalized illiterates - see the reality of the world around him. It takes place when illiterates come together in dialogue to discuss situations affecting their existence Conscientization is thus a dialectical process that relates critical reflection on past action to the continuing struggle for a better future This process of consciousness awareness cannot be carried out by proxy, that is, no one conscientizes anyone else. As a literacy process, Conscientization is dialectical between the* and practice, or between reflection and action. It is in respect of this that dialogue becomes a necessary condition for liberating literacy. Hence for Freire the object of literacy education is liberation through conscientization and its method is dialogue, what then is the relation ship between literacy and conscientization. As we have observed, conscientization is a process of growing and developing in awareness whose target is to know and transform reality. Freire however, employed the concept as a method of transformation. He also employed it to analyse literacy as a political project. The first task in this analysis is to make the illiterates aware of the cause of their plight. The first causes are social conditions which shape ma and his consciousness. Thus the first task is to change the illiterate! consciousness. This attempt to change their consciousness is, at the same time, an attempt to make literacy education "the practice of freed It is in this sense that conscientization and literacy are described as coincidental. The outcome of this relation is a literacy practice that is highly political. Literacy education at this point is a liberational act that involves a radical resistance of dehumanizing and unjust social economic and political conditions. This resistance leads to a destruct of these structures after which man is in a position to create new structures. While considering the social problems in dialogue with other men the illiterate is led into a situation of intentional critical thinking which enables him according to Freire (1985:85) to undertake "a rational and rigorous critique" of the social, political and economic situations around them. Conscientization thus links the literacy process with the existential situations of the learners. This link plus the skill of literacy education empowers the illiterates to

begin to take steps towards transforming the ugly elements of their existential situations. The empowerment through literacy seeks to make learners understand their world and their present position in it and also to make them undertake efforts to change the adverse social, economic and political situations Thus economic, social and political empowerment emanate from the symmetrical relation between literacy education and conscientization in Freire's philosophy. What comes out clearly from Frelre's use of conscientization as a literacy process is the need to involve the learners and their world in the learning process. Illiterates too are beings capable of reflection not only action. The task of our literacy educators then is to equip the illiterates to make conscious efforts as an exploited social class, to liberate themselves from socio-political and economic bondage. Under the present setting, any literacy education that fails to conscientize the learners is almost a wasted effort. Another implication of the Freirean approach is the role of the educator becoming more demanding. He is no longer just an educator but also a politician. He is a liberating educator whose task has been brilliantly summarised by Comrade Pinoda costa (1988:119): The basic task of the political educator is to teach adults to read and write their own reality by encouraging them to think critically about the world and to take their place in it with an increasing lucid awareness of their own changing 'reality. This takes literacy education beyond the level of reading and-writing the word to include reading and writing the world (Freire 1987: viii). This makes literacy a process of going to the roots of the problems of society. It is thus a process of blending critical reflection with positive and creative action. Literacy education limited to the quantitative mechanistic levels cannot aid illiterates to transform the lethal socio-economic and political world around them. Literacy educators especially in Nigeria, need to take advantage of the relation between literacy education and conscientization as enunciated in Paulo Freire's philosophy of education.

CONCLUSION
The havoc which illiteracy and its attendant 'problems have brought to society are glaring even beyond the scope mentioned in this paper. We have identified literacy as a major solution to the problems. It has however, been observed that literacy as presently conceived and practiced cannot effectively tackle the problems. Literacy at its present mechanistic and functional concerns is limited to the quantitative values which do not get to the roots of the problems. The Freirean approach which incorporates the element of consciousness arousal takes literacy education beyond the level of the 3Rs. Besides, it situates the art of reading and writing in the broader social, economic and political concerns of man's life. Thus literacy as the process of conscientization not only aims at eradicating illiteracy but, at the same time empowers the learners to transform the ills which illiteracy has wrought on society.

REFERENCES
Aji, U.(1988) "Nigeria has 56 million illiterates" in Adult Education and Development no. 31 Alemayehu, R.(1988) "Adult Education and the Third World: An African perspective" in Lovett, T. (ed) Radical Approaches to Adult Education A Reader Routledge, London. Costa, P.(1987) quoted by Paulo in Adult Education and Development no. 31 Fordman, P.(1983) Cooperating for Literacy a DSE Seminar report. Freire, P.(1985) The Politics of Education Begin & Garvey, South Hadley Freire (1987) Literacy: Reading the word and the World.