International Literacy Day

Introduction

International literacy day was proclaimed to be held every year on September 8th by the United Nations on November 17th, 1965. The first literacy day however was observed on 1966. The main aim behind starting a day on literacy was to spread awareness among individuals, communities and countries.

Literacy is recognized as a global requirement and various activities and celebrations are made throughout the world on this day. The United Nations and its agency UNESCO, every year launch many programs like seminars, awareness drives, school and college competitions, exchange programs, rural education programs to spread the roots and awareness of an educated and well literate world.

Literacy-importance:

Why is literacy important?

Literacy is not only important to read and write but it leads to an overall more empowered society. Some of the reasons of importance of Literacy are:

1. “Right to Literacy” is a human right and a means for personal empowerment.
2. It is important for social development.
3. A literate society is the core of developing a society free of poverty, child mortality, population growth, gender equality, peace and development.
4. A literate individual is the best means to spreading further learning and education. As an example it is easy to visualize that a literate person will definitely send his kid to attain education.

Themes

2009 - The Power of Literacy

Theme: The theme for Literacy day 2009 is “Literacy and empowerment”. That is all the awareness and development activities will be focused on how a literate society can lead to better economic, healthy and growing world.

2007-2008

Theme: The theme of International literacy day 2007-08 was the relationship between literacy and health.

2005-2006

Theme:”Literacy sustains development”. As it is believed that literacy is the outcome of development, it stated that it sustains development as well.

Literacy Initiatives


Since the inception of Literacy day, it has been widely supported and encouraged by many countries, organizations and institutes. Some of the supporters and initiative takers of Literacy day and the move for education are:

Literacy Initiative (LIFE) (2005-2015)

LIFE, UNESCO’s literacy Initiative for empowerment is framework that defines strategies for the activities under the United Nations literary decade(2003-2012) to achieve “Education for all” (EFA)mission.The activities will specially focus on the adult-education and children out-of-school. Although there were many measures taken to achieve the target of increasing the literacy day by 50 %, they were still not enough, and thus, this initiative called LIFE was suggested.

The UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) is coordinating LIFE.

Participating countries are:

• Asia and the Pacific: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan and Papua New Guinea;
• Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sierra Leone;
• Arab States: Egypt, Iraq, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan and Yemen;
• Latin America and the Caribbean: Brazil and Haiti.

The immediate objectives of LIFE are:

• To reinforce the national and international commitment to literacy through advocacy and communication;
• To support the articulation of policies for sustainable literacy within sector-wide and national development frameworks:
• To strengthen national capacities for programme design, management and implementation;
• To enhance countries' innovative initiatives and practices in providing literacy learning opportunities.

Education for all

This literary initiative was started by UNESCO, which was meant to provide literacy needs for all ages till 2015. Ten important things about EFA:

EFA is a right: Since1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that “everyone has the right to education” (Article 26), UNESCO has maintained that obtaining education is not a matter of chance and situations it is a “right.

EFA is everyone’s concern: Time to time different countries and organizations have come together to realize the importance for cooperated efforts and need for literacy.

EFA is a development imperative: A world of peace, dignity, justice and equality depends on many factors – education is central among them. Literacy is central to a more healthy and developed society as a educated individual is more probable to take informed choices and decisions.

EFA really is FOR ALL: As a matter of fact still there are lots of discriminations even in the field of education. It is noticed that girls, rural kids, street children, underprivileged children are more in number when it comes to illiteracy. Thus, literacy cannot attain its goal without developing a strategic plan.

EFA is for all ages and in all settings: According to EFA , it is never too late to learn and never too early to start.

EFA means inclusive quality learning: Quality learning is one that makes one’s living more sophisticated and easier. The curriculum, teaching procedure and various other factors come into play to define a quality Education.

EFA is making remarkable progress: With many acitivities under EFA, secondary students has risen substantially, public spending on education has increased, number of secondary students has risen substantially, more girls are enrolled than ever before and many more areas have shown progressive growth.

EFA still faces many challenges: According to recent calculations, approximately 75 million children are still not enrolled in school and an estimated 776 million adults (16% of the world’s population) have not yet had the opportunity to learn to read and write

EFA needs support from everyone: For a goal as large as EFA, the progress is not possible until and unless political, technical and economic support is provided from all the participating entities.

EFA has a multiplier effect: Education does not only influence the lives of an individual but also simultaneously affect the lives of corresponding families, society and organizations.

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan(India)

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is a pioneer program that was started under the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.The main aim of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is to provide elementary education to all children in the 6-14 years of age-group. The same has been mentioned in the 86th amendment to the Constitution of India making free and compulsory education to children of ages 6-14. Under SSA, many areas which do not have the facility of schools or with inadequate infrastructure have been provided with additional teachers, ladies staff, clerical staff, convinience facilities etc.

Other initiatives taken:

1. The Writers for Literacy Initiative : Various writers from across the world took up the cause of education and emphasized the need of written knowledge. Some of the writers are: Margaret Atwood, Paul Auster, Philippe Claudel, Paulo Coelho, Philippe Delerm, Fatou Diome, Chahdortt Djavann, Nadine Gordimer, Amitav Ghosh, Marc Levy, Alberto Manguel, Anna Moi, Scott Momaday, Toni Morrison, Erik Orsenna, Gisèle Pineau, El Tayeb Salih, Francisco Jose Sionil, Wole Soyinka, Amy Tan, Miklós Vámos, Abdourahman Waberi, Wei Wei, Banana Yoshimoto.
2. Companies/organizations: Apart from the writers there are many charitable and non-charitable organizations those are fighting against the cause of illiteracy.
3. Contributions of Montblanc: This company is into manufacturing of handwriting instruments and since many years has been supporting UNESCO’s mission by providing underprivileged children with means of education. Also, on international literacy day’2009, Montblanc will auction 12 portraits of famous figures to raise money for the education of underprivileged children.

Mission:Literacy

The goal behind the foundation of International literacy day and other initiatives for literacy remains to achieve literacy and education for all countries, classes, genders, ages at least at the basic level.

Today its definitely a point of jubilation that the number of literate people in the world is approx. four billion, but, the aim to have an “all literate world” remains a dream as today one in five adults is still not literate and two-thirds of them are women while 75 million children are out of school. There have been many lacunas in different areas that have made this dream an ever chasing target.

Although there are very ambitious dreams but there are no parallel and leveled efforts and infrastructure to achieve the same. Also, the complexity and level of the mission has been underestimated. All these results of the past have very well emphasized the need to develop an infrastructure that imbibes not only plans and strategies but a system with implementation at all levels- National, local and international.

Renewed Vision:

From the past experimenting and understanding UNESCO’s mission for literacy has been revising and renewing every year. Today UN does not model a single view for literacy. The basic understanding of who is literate and who is illiterate has also modifies since years.

Also with respect to the growing changers in social, economic and technical fields the use of literacy has also evolved. Initially, the ability to read, write and understand was considered as literacy, but today it it about using it all in a useful manner. Literacy today is not only academic knowledge but across different facets of life.

Literacy decade

United Nations Literacy Decade (2003 - 2012)

Proclamation: The united nations literary decade was proclaimed by the General assembly for the years starting from 2003 in its A/RES/56/116 resolution and In resolution A/RES/57/166, the Assembly welcomed the” International “and decided that Unesco would take up different activities for the literacy decade.

Slogan: The slogan for United Nations Literacy decade (UNLD) is “Literacy as freedom.

Mission: The mission and the main aim behind the launch of this decade were to empower literacy and education at all levels.

Role of UNESCO: On the request of the General Assembly UNESCO is taking care and initiatives for all international activities regarding The Literary Decade.

Overall target of the decade: Since its inception the main target is to increase the literacy rate by 50% till 2015.

Why Literacy decade?
The decade was launched for three main reasons:

1. On a global scale, one in five adults cannot read nor write. According to the latest estimates, 776 million people are illiterate and two-thirds of these are women. In a modern world, such levels are unacceptable.
2. Literacy is a human right. Basic education, within which literacy is the key learning tool, was recognized as a human right over 50 years ago, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This right continues to be violated for a large proportion of humanity.
3. Literacy efforts up to now have proved inadequate, at national and international levels. The Decade is an opportunity to make a sustained collective effort which will go beyond one-shot programs or campaigns.

According to the plan of The United Nations literary decade “Literacy policies and programs today require going beyond the limited view of literacy that has dominated in the past. Literacy for all requires a renewed vision of literacy….”

Literacy Reports

According to UNESCO’s "Global Monitoring Report on Education for All (2008), following literacy rates have been estimated, which is a clear indicator of relation between poverty and illiteracy.

• South and West Asia has the lowest regional adult literacy rate (58.6%)
• Sub-Saharan Africa (59.7%)
• The Arab States(62.7%)
• Burkina Faso (12.8%)
• Niger (14.4%)
• Mali (19%)

UNESCO

UNESCO stands for United Nations educational scientific and cultural organization. It was established in 1945. Its main aim since its birth has been to raise the world literacy levels and to spread awareness among people regarding the importance of literacy.

• It has been volunteering numerous activities to ensure that there is always an effort flowing to spread the roots of education. Various initiatives like LIFE, EFA and many more have been immensely appreciated and supported by all the participating countries.
• Today it stands tall as a library for ideas that prepares and monitors activities in the field of education.
• Promotes international co-operation among its 193* Member States and six Associate Members in the fields of education, science, culture and communication.
• Helps nations develop a strategy for national development.
• UNESCO pursues its objectives through five major programs: education, natural sciences, social and human sciences, culture, and communication and information.