Greece: The link between Literacy and development
In the previous post we discussed the severity of the literacy problem in Greece and we saw how the government actions to raise the literacy level of the greek population virtually stopped after the 80s, however the situation has not improved in the past years with more than one out of four people being functionally illiterate. In this post we are going to broad the dimension of the problem also keeping other factors into account such as the relationships between geography and economics.
Geography and the lack of resources
When geography is taken into account we can observe a very nuanced situation: With more than 22% of the total greek population, Athens is the center of the country life; not only it is the center of the social and political administrative buildings, being the capital, but also many of the manufacturing industries and productive activities can be found in the suburbs of the city and as a proof for the unequal distribution of economic activities in the territory, it has been reported that the 68% of the total urbanization movement in Greece between the 50s and 60s only happened around Athens which still nowadays is the biggest industrial area of the country.
In addition, the other regions of the country lack the basic resources and investments to sustain a civic and industrial development. In fact, less than 30% of the land is arable and the soil itself is not rich of raw materials and minerals, also due to the climate with very little rains and the lack of infrastructures that disadvantage the agriculture. A very small percentage of the total greek territory is thus used in agriculture, while most of it is left uncultivated.
Example of the Greek landscape in the island of Crete.
When it comes to geography and its link with illiteracy, we can say that most of the land in Greece is unfitted for an agricultural and industrial development. The lack of industrial raw materials and the centralization of the economic activities in Athens, as well as the very nature of the morphology of the territory, characterized by mountains and isles, lead to the fact that both national and international investments for the economic development of the country go towards the enlargement of the Athenian industrial area, leaving the other rural regions behind and increasing the already important inequality in the country.
When these factors are taken into account they give a better explanation of why there has been a lack of policies towards the industrialization, and thus the education of the rural areas but to understand the problem the economy of the country also needs to be analyzed.
Economy and the 2008 crisis
As we mentioned in the previous section, economic activity when it comes to industry are low and concentrated in Athens while also the primary sector of the economy is underdeveloped, also due to the morphology of the territory. From the 1950s onwards, the main economic resource of Greece was based on tourism, mainly on the isles and the capital, due to the warm, mediterranean climate, the nature and the historical landsite.
Top to bottom: the island of Santorini and the Parthenon in Athens, two examples of touristic landmarks in Greece.
With Greece joining the EC in 1981 it received foreign help to increase the literacy level of its population, but although the economy of the country seemed to increase, the real wages did not. Between the 80s and the early 2000s Greece saw a (limited) improvement in the education of its people, however the 2008 financial crisis hit the country very hard. In few years the public debt raised from the 103% of 2007 to 180% by 2014, while the GDP has lost the 4.8% between 2008 and 2011. With the public debt skyrocketing, the GDP lowering and the unemployment rate rising, Greece was unable to raise the literacy level of the country by making investments, and with more and more people dropping their studies in search for job the situation could not improve.
The most affected by the crisis were not only the adults that found themselves without a job but also the youth; in fact, as mentioned by Maria Mexi in the book “Solidarity as a Public Virtue?”
Greek youth have witnessed one crisis after another from rising unemployment, poverty, insecurity, fear and anger to pessimism regarding the future
M. Mexi
Following the 2008 economic crisis, many protests against the austerity took place in Greece.
Nowadays the problem of functional illiteracy is still very relevant in Greece, not only in its adult and elder population but, worryingly, also in its youth. Although there is not a clear link between unemployment, geography and literacy, it is undeniable that there seems to be a clear correlation between the lack of industries outside the capital and the level of illiteracy, as if government investments were only done with the country production in mind, without considering that the education of the people is as important as productiveness and perhaps even more, because a productive society cannot exist without an educated population that keeps it alive.
Photos were taken from Unslpash.com.
This is a really interesting post! I never thought about this topic from this point of view before. You write in your post that economic crises have also influenced literacy in Greece. Would you say that the Corona crisis is another big challenge for Greece in terms of illiteracy? Let me know what you think 🙂
Hello Nike, thank you for the interesting question. I believe that the major issue with the 2008 crisis is that its consequences are still visible nowadays in Greece, while with Covid it may be still too soon to draw conclusions. Personally I believe that the EU helped its member states a lot -maybe more than ever- with its Recovery Plan so I genuinely hope that the pandemic won’t have such an impact when it comes to literacy.
Hi Giovanni, I really liked reading your blogpost. In it, you mention that there is a difference in development between Athens and the rest of Greece. But it was not really clear to me if this is also reflected in literacy levels. Is this the case, and if so, do you have a source that shows this?
Hello Julia, thank you for your answer. The link between development and literacy can be summarized by the fact that the government made investments in the capital and the big cities, which virtually resulted in investment only in Athen (for the majority) and Tessaloniki, the second largest city. These investments helped those cities develop both in the industries and in the services provided to citizens (aka more and better schools). However few investments were made in the countryside with a population that still didn’t have a level and a number of schools as high as in the capital and with such inequities the population outside Athens (and Tessaloniki, in a smaller extent) could not aim at a high education resulting in literacy difficulties. I found this information in the work of Sipitanou “illiteracy in greece: presenting and confronting the problem”
Hi Giovanni, a very interesting continuation of your first blog post! In relation to the crisis comment, would you say that Greek youth has been dealt a “bad hand” when it comes to the Covid-19 pandemic and the already existing crisis of literacy levels?