The issue is as old as it is ignored. The OECD has spent its best efforts to offer a complete picture at an international level. In Italy, however, only two important linguists have paid attention to it: Tullio De Mauro and Luca Serianni.
We are in 2003 when, as part of the project ALL (Adult Literacy and Lifeskills), many Italian adults find themselves faced with six graded questionnaires and, in front of them, the inquiring gaze of OECD officials. The aim is to observe the behavior of the adult population and analyze how they respond - if they respond - to requests to exhibit reading and comprehension, writing and calculation skills.
The results are nothing short of catastrophic. The 5% of the working age population is not even able to access the reading of the questionnaires because they are unable to decipher the value of the letters. Another 38% identifies them but still cannot read. Then add the 33% which reads the first level questionnaire, but already stops at the second level, where the sentences are slightly more complex. It's that defined range at risk of illiteracy: people who, despite being formally literate, cannot read a newspaper or a notice to the public. There remains only a quarter - not even a quarter - of adults capable of carrying out the most complex questionnaires: those on the use of alphanumeric skills when faced with new problems.
The investigation, on the other hand, is certainly not isolated. How many newspapers are sold every day in Italy, if we exclude sports newspapers? Less than five million. How many daily visitors are there to information sites? Less than five million. How many Italians regularly enter the bookshop? Less than five million. How many viewers watch in-depth programs in the late evening? Less than five million. And it is certainly not difficult to imagine that it is always the same five million. A very minority club within which the entire political and cultural debate takes place, an attentive and articulate public opinion is formed, there is indignation at the events of our democracy.
Tullio De Mauro analyzes the issue in an interview (now a classic) collected in the book The culture of the Italians. And it also presents us with a much more problematic situation. A boy who lives in a house full of books (perhaps with professional parents) does better at school. If the data is what we have seen, only a modest percentage of schoolchildren lives in an environment conducive to their cultural and professional growth. As well as economical, obviously. The rest is destined to return illiteracy and social immobility. Providing adults with literacy is an action that is not only complementary to improving the academic performance of young people: it is necessary to give them the opportunity to emancipate themselves economically and professionally.
«As we now know from economists – De Mauro again – or we should know, there is a close correlation between indices of cultural levels (formal schooling, literacy effective reading of newspapers and books) and technological and productive capabilities of a country and/or even of a single regional area". The one analyzed - one can well imagine - is a phenomenon that determines, in fact, the backwardness of our country. The interest on the part of the various education reformers, however, continues to be absent or fossilized on abstruse questions of meritocracy. We seem to be facing the same problems that Manzoni and Ascoli faced at the dawn of the unification of Italy. With the difference, however, that the issue is today ignored and submerged by liberal rhetoric.
Published on The Democratic Mole
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