Seminar on Gender and Literacy Development:

Reaching the Dropouts

The Pacific Sutera, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah
18th May 2017

Literacy and Human Development:

An Integrated Approach
By:
Assoc Prof. Dr. Marinah Awang
Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris
 Structure
• The context
• The highlights : facts and figures
• Government policy and planning
• Towards an integrative approach
 The context
• Based on UNDP reports the status of
human development in countries of
the world is measured by using the
Human Development Index (HDI).
HDI is a composite index consisting of

Income
(per capita of
GNP – Gross Life Expectancy
National
Product)

Education Attainment
(the amount of time
that a person spent in
schooling & adult
literacy)
• To increase human resources quality, we need
education.
• The role of education in promoting economic
development is well-recognized and well-
documented.
• This could increase individual’s income, as
UNDP counts educational attainment itself,
(measured by adult literacy rate) as part of the
essential component for human development.
• These components will serve as knowledge
driven human power for the country’s
development.
• Education is becoming crucial in promoting
human development, which is driven by two
forces of social change—globalization and
hybridization (Koizumi, 2016).
• Globalization and Hybridization – is portrayed as
the apparent changes in the role of female
decorum in the society. Females tends to be
identified as housewives and perform domestic
tasks.
• Educational advancement and social achievement
can be difficult at times due to the constraint
domestic role that women uphold.
• In the era of globalization, females are leaned
towards a career-driven path and actively
involved in other economic activities such as
entrepreneurship, education, managerial and
agriculture.
Human Development Report (2008) divide countries
of the world into three groups (adult literacy rate):

Iceland, Norway, Australia, High

Canada, Ireland, Sweden,
Switzerland and Japan (70 countries)
99%

Medium
Argentina, Brazil, Sri Lanka, (84 countries)
Malaysia, Hungary and Libya
99% to 47.5%

Sierra Leone, Morocco,

Low
Bangladesh and Yemen (26 countries)
67.4% to 24.0%
Disparity in adult literacy rate between
gender
• What distinguishes among high, medium and low
human development countries are not just the level of
adult literacy rate, but also the disparity between male
and female adult literacy rate among and within these
countries.
• However, the disparity between gender in adult literacy
rate is almost non-existent in high human development
countries.
• As a matter of fact, the combined gross enrolment
ratio for primary, secondary and tertiary education is
higher for females than for males in some countries.
HDI ranking for medium vs. low countries

Sierra
Morocco
Leone

Male Male
65.7% 46.7%

Female Female
39.6% 24.2%
 Scenario in Malaysia
• The statistics that I have previously shown is an
example of a global problem. For a developing
country such as Malaysia, we are still facing
difficulties in achieving a better quality in
education and economic growth.
• The disparity is still relevant in Malaysia in which
it is apparent between national (between States),
regional (urban and rural) and gender (male and
female). This is because there is still a gap in the
involvement of human power in the education
and economic sector.
Table 1: Number and percentage distribution of human power based on States, strata
and gender, Malaysia, 2014.
Figure 1: Average of Poverty Line Income (PLI) based on regions, 2014
Figure 2 : Number and household income below 40% (B40) divided into States, 2014.
Table 2: Number and percentage of household with a minimum wage below 40% (B40)
based on States and strata, 2014.
Figure 3: The percentage of population distribution for employment based on the
highest level of certification and strata, Malaysia, 2014
Table 3: Literacy rates (%) by citizenship and age group, 2000-2013
Table 4: Percentage of household based on infrastructure electricity and water
supply, States and strata, Malaysia, 2014
 Government policy and planning
• The roadmap to achieve this ambition lies in
various policies over the years.
• One of which are presented in the recently
launched 11th Malaysia Plan (11MP, 2016-
2020), whose theme is “anchoring growth on
people” for a socially inclusive society.
Table 5: Overview of Malaysia’s development planning framework
 Food for thoughts...
• The cake is getting bigger but relatively, is it
equally shared across the nation, region and
gender?
• What else can we contribute to boost the
human development of our country?
• It takes two to tango; collaboration between
national policies towards human development
and reality check.
 Towards the integrated approach
• There is no single framework or approach of
literacy and HRD that fits to any specific
context as we are juggling between the truth
and the reality. What I have here is trying to
lay out the truth and the reality a setting.
Therefore, I propose a generic and integrative
approach of HRD by looking into various
significance constructs.
Dynamic Strategic HRD: an integrated approach

Strategic Human •Knowledge sharing between

Resource practitioners and stakeholders
Development
Enablers

Specific •Include internal and external

Components
relationship; communities of
practice

Underlying
Process

•Environmental scanning,
capturing and reconfiguration

Dynamic,
Strategic, Human
Resource
Development •Continuous improvement,
learning and transformation

Adaptation from Garavan, Shanahan, Carbery and Watson, 2016.

 Conclusion
• Globalization and hybridization
• Education attainment
• Knowledge driven
• Egalitarian society