They maintained, “Literacy . . . is something like a public good in that a literate agent confers a positive externality on the illiterate agents in the household by sharing the benefits of his or her literacy.”375 Therefore, in their estimation drawn from data in Bangladesh, the idea of proximate (proximal) illiteracy versus isolated illiteracy was of major importance. Their wise concept for group-oriented cultures could bring an efficient strategy to literacy programs, helping target households with no access to one literate person, as opposed to trying to teach every person to read.
