Sejong the Great...

I’m returning from a restorative week at the Global Schools Forum Annual Meeting in Accra, Ghana. It was wonderful to be in community with school leaders from Columbia to India, early childhood through secondary school, all with the aim of improving the lives of school children across the globe. Being surrounded by such rich discussions on foundational skills reminded me of a story I once read about a 15th century Korean monarch, known as Sejong the Great. I know a connection seems unlikely, but bear with me ;)

Sejong was born in 1397, and ascended to the throne in 1418, and revolutionized government by appointing people throughout the different social classes to civil servants, according to the ethical and philosophical system of Confucianism (which later became the social norm). He is credited with technological advances during his reign – he created a farmer’s handbook to outline different farming techniques gathered by scientists across Korea, he sponsored the creation of the first rain gauge, sundials, accurate water clocks, and maps of the stars and celestial globes. But perhaps most importantly, he profoundly affected Korean history with the introduction of Hangul – the native phonetic alphabet system for the Korean language. Before the creation of Hangul, only members of the highest class were literate – one would have to learn complex characters in order to read and write Korean. In 1443, Sejong along with eight advisers, developed the 24-letter Korean alphabet, with the explicit goal of helping Koreans from all classes read and write. Each Hangul letter is based on a simplified diagram of the patterns made by the mouth, tongue and teeth when making the sound related to the character. It was said that anyone could learn Hangul in a matter of days. Sejong faced much opposition from government officials and aristocrats, but lower classes embraced it, became literate, and were able to communicate with one another in writing.

Photo: Statue of King Sejong via Republic of Korea, under CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED

Importantly, the principles of Hangul are the same ones that guide our Read Smart Cinyanja program, that continues to show impressive results. We developed this program in order to ensure that every child emerging from our Impact Network schools have solid literacy skills, as they play such a critical role in increasing job opportunities and access to further educational opportunities. Literate individuals earn 30%-40% more than their illiterate counterparts across the globe. Illiteracy costs the global economy more than USD $1 trillion dollars each year, and at least one in five people worldwide struggle with illiteracy. This is not just a responsibility that we place on our teachers alone at Impact Network. We are a team – it is all of our responsibilities to make sure that our students are reading and writing at an appropriate level. Teacher supervisors are supporting each and every teacher in our system. Our management team makes sure that we have the school supplies, appropriate infrastructure, and resources to make our schools effective. We are excited to see Read Smart continue to grow in 2024!

-Reshma