Picture this: it's a pre-historic age. The Sun rises over the horizon. It’s peaceful, only the birds chirp in the distance – some are close by. Gorg, a caveman, rolls out of his sleeping spot and readies himself for the day. His glance sweeps across the cave, mentally ticking off each of his family members as he sees them. And that’s when his eyes settle on Frurughz, the young male who has joined his family settlement when a pack of sabre-toothed tigers took out Frurughz’s community.
Gorg did not mind his presence. Not only had Frurughz remained an orphan at an early age, he also had wildly different interests and aptitudes than Gorg’s clan. His hunting and tool-shaping skills are just not up to par. What’s worse, he has no grasp of the terminology Gorg and his clan use to ambush and hunt down a mammoth.
Or, as Gorg would tell Armundzf, the mother of his children, and others around the table at his cave-folk dinner party, over a mammoth rib and some protozoan-infested water: Frurughz is such an illiterate.
For a person to become an active member of society, at any period in history, literacy in a certain number of areas is required. A minimal level is needed to survive in society and higher levels of literacy will result in thriving, not just surviving.
Throughout the ages, acquiring skills has been an evolutionary attribute of humanity and the importance and implications for people, society and the economy cannot be understated. Every technological and social step forward has contributed to who we are today. Agriculture, literature, arts, mathematics, engineering, the pyramids, and so much more, tell who we are, over time.
I am sure that during the age of hunter-gatherers, minimal literacy was about hunting and gathering. Plus, there will have been elements of shelter-building, clothes-making and culture-forming. All knowledge was imparted experientially by family and clan members, passed down the ages by storytelling.
I suspect that diversification of literacy-types will have evolved over the ages, too. Pyramids, temples, colosseums and other ancient super structures remain from a time that was hugely articulate: not everyone had to be a master temple-builder; but everyone had to have some form of literacy for a place in that society. The empires of ancient times had schools for some – mostly the wealthy or of royal descent, like those who became scribes in Mesopotamia – and advanced skills were taught on the job: masonry, shipbuilding, farming and so on.
I learnt a few basics on a Sinclair ZX81 with my dad’s computer instructor in the early 1980s. My son learns everything online, without an instructor
Fast-forward to the year 2000, and 75 per cent of the global population has received some form of elementary schooling, though regional and country variations are significant. Learning has moved from being a specialised on-the-job experience-based endeavour to being an in-class taught undertaking.
This latter approach has lifted the level of literacy that we commonly see today: children, adolescents and learners acquire fundamental literacy skills in reading, writing and mathematics. Specialised skills are taught in advanced learning settings as well as through apprenticeships and other means. However, the core skills that everyone needs are taught formally. This poses a conundrum, because the “core” changes over time.
Along come Generation Z (1997-2010) and Alpha (post-2010) – and the technologies they are native to, and that we older generations have learnt to use or at least live with. I learnt a few basics on a Sinclair ZX81 with my dad’s computer instructor in the early 1980s. My son learns everything online, without an instructor. And I mean everything. The opportunities are infinitely greater today, as are the risks.
The entirety of our lives is online – from memories to bank accounts, to our social lives, our shopping lists and our travel arrangements. It often feels like malicious actors access my content with greater ease than I’m able to myself. This is precisely why digital literacy, while not new, is of paramount and universal importance. This entails understanding the meaning and impact of what we do, should or should not do online and how we protect ourselves and our families.
The race against viruses, phishing scams and malware in general is relentless. As private-sector companies invest significant percentages of their revenue to protect themselves, we need to become as literate as we possibly can, even if we are only end-users and not tech-savvy folks with specialist knowledge. While governments have a role in regulating and policing online activity, it is down to each single user to protect themselves.
And so, we come full circle: we live in a world in which classroom learning is being re-designed and re-configured, moving online and becoming personalised. Digital literacy is more important than ever today and for the future (as is financial literacy, by the way). Should this be taught alongside maths, reading and writing? Or should this happen indirectly, organically, through both official and dubious sources?
I don’t have an answer, but I would dread the day when I am at a dinner party and need to explain to my friends, over beef ribs and kale salad, that I have lost our holiday snaps because I was computer illiterate.
The specs: 2018 Ducati SuperSport S
Price, base / as tested: Dh74,900 / Dh85,900
Engine: 937cc
Transmission: Six-speed gearbox
Power: 110hp @ 9,000rpm
Torque: 93Nm @ 6,500rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 5.9L / 100km
Brief scores:
Pakistan (1st innings) 181: Babar 71; Olivier 6-37
South Africa (1st innings) 223: Bavuma 53; Amir 4-62
Pakistan (2nd innings) 190: Masood 65, Imam 57; Olivier 5-59
Game Of Thrones Season Seven: A Bluffers Guide
Want to sound on message about the biggest show on television without actually watching it? Best not to get locked into the labyrinthine tales of revenge and royalty: as Isaac Hempstead Wright put it, all you really need to know from now on is that there’s going to be a huge fight between humans and the armies of undead White Walkers.
The season ended with a dragon captured by the Night King blowing apart the huge wall of ice that separates the human world from its less appealing counterpart. Not that some of the humans in Westeros have been particularly appealing, either.
Anyway, the White Walkers are now free to cause any kind of havoc they wish, and as Liam Cunningham told us: “Westeros may be zombie land after the Night King has finished.” If the various human factions don’t put aside their differences in season 8, we could be looking at The Walking Dead: The Medieval Years.
Score
New Zealand 266 for 9 in 50 overs
Pakistan 219 all out in 47.2 overs
New Zealand win by 47 runs
New Zealand lead three-match ODI series 1-0
Next match: Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi, Friday
The finalists
Player of the Century, 2001-2020: Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus), Lionel Messi (Barcelona), Mohamed Salah (Liverpool), Ronaldinho
Coach of the Century, 2001-2020: Pep Guardiola (Manchester City), Jose Mourinho (Tottenham Hotspur), Zinedine Zidane (Real Madrid), Sir Alex Ferguson
Club of the Century, 2001-2020: Al Ahly (Egypt), Bayern Munich (Germany), Barcelona (Spain), Real Madrid (Spain)
Player of the Year: Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich)
Club of the Year: Bayern Munich, Liverpool, Real Madrid
Coach of the Year: Gian Piero Gasperini (Atalanta), Hans-Dieter Flick (Bayern Munich), Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool)
Agent of the Century, 2001-2020: Giovanni Branchini, Jorge Mendes, Mino Raiola
England 12-man squad for second Test
v West Indies which starts Thursday: Rory Burns, Joe Denly, Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root (captain), Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes, Moeen Ali, Ben Foakes, Sam Curran, Stuart Broad, Jimmy Anderson, Jack Leach
Five hymns the crowds can join in
Papal Mass will begin at 10.30am at the Zayed Sports City Stadium on Tuesday
Some 17 hymns will be sung by a 120-strong UAE choir
Five hymns will be rehearsed with crowds on Tuesday morning before the Pope arrives at stadium
‘Christ be our Light’ as the entrance song
‘All that I am’ for the offertory or during the symbolic offering of gifts at the altar
‘Make me a Channel of your Peace’ and ‘Soul of my Saviour’ for the communion
‘Tell out my Soul’ as the final hymn after the blessings from the Pope
The choir will also sing the hymn ‘Legions of Heaven’ in Arabic as ‘Assakiroo Sama’
There are 15 Arabic speakers from Syria, Lebanon and Jordan in the choir that comprises residents from the Philippines, India, France, Italy, America, Netherlands, Armenia and Indonesia
The choir will be accompanied by a brass ensemble and an organ
They will practice for the first time at the stadium on the eve of the public mass on Monday evening
MATCH INFO
Everton 0
Manchester City 2 (Laporte 45 2', Jesus 90 7')
In numbers: China in Dubai
The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000
Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000
Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent
Indoor cricket in a nutshell
Indoor Cricket World Cup – Sep 16-20, Insportz, Dubai
16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side
8 There are eight players per team
9 There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.
5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls
4 Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership
Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.
Zones
A Front net, behind the striker and wicketkeeper: 0 runs
B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run
C Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs
D Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full
Tightening the screw on rogue recruiters
The UAE overhauled the procedure to recruit housemaids and domestic workers with a law in 2017 to protect low-income labour from being exploited.
Only recruitment companies authorised by the government are permitted as part of Tadbeer, a network of labour ministry-regulated centres.
A contract must be drawn up for domestic workers, the wages and job offer clearly stating the nature of work.
The contract stating the wages, work entailed and accommodation must be sent to the employee in their home country before they depart for the UAE.
The contract will be signed by the employer and employee when the domestic worker arrives in the UAE.
Only recruitment agencies registered with the ministry can undertake recruitment and employment applications for domestic workers.
Penalties for illegal recruitment in the UAE include fines of up to Dh100,000 and imprisonment
But agents not authorised by the government sidestep the law by illegally getting women into the country on visit visas.
ESSENTIALS
The flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.
The tours
A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages.
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League last 16, first leg
Liverpool v Bayern Munich, midnight, Wednesday, BeIN Sports
MATCH INFO
Who: UAE v USA
What: first T20 international
When: Friday, 2pm
Where: ICC Academy in Dubai
