Ei-iE

To highlight how a literate society paves the way toward a positive future, UNESCO is making sustainable development the focus and theme to mark this year’s International Literacy Day.

With this year’s theme of “Literacy and Sustainable Development,” UNESCO wants the world to know that literacy is one of the most efficient ways of improving the health of mothers and children, understanding doctors’ prescriptions, and gaining access to healthcare.

“International Literacy Day, devoted this year to the connection between literacy and sustainable development, provides us with an opportunity to remember a simple truth: literacy not only changes lives, it saves them,” stated Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO, in her message on the occasion of International Literacy Day.

According to UNESCO, the lives of more than two million children under the age of five were saved between 1990 and 2009 thanks to improvements in the education of women of reproductive age.

Today, 781 million adults worldwide cannot read, write or count - two thirds of them are women, she said. She added that more than 250 million children are unable to read a single sentence, even though half of them have spent four years in school.

Literacy is linked to quality education

Education International (EI) has always highlighted the role of literacy as “one of the key elements needed to promote sustainable development, as it empowers people so that they can make the right decisions in the areas of economic growth, social development and environmental integration”, affirmed EI General Secretary Fred van Leeuwen. “Literacy is a basis for lifelong learning and plays a crucial foundational role in the creation of sustainable, prosperous and peaceful societies.”

The only long-term action that will eradicate illiteracy is the provision of high quality, free and compulsory education for all children, as underlined by EI’s Unite for Quality Education campaign. Teachers must be given high quality and in-depth initial teacher education as well as continuous training to upgrade their skills relating to a variety of methods for teaching literacy.

In spite of the many measures taken as a result of the programme adopted jointly by UNESCO, UNICEF, the World Bank and UNDP at the Jomtien Conference in 1990 on Education for All, 23 per cent of the world's population is still illiterate. Illiteracy is higher among groups such as ethnic minorities, Indigenous Peoples, migrants, nomads, rural populations, and populations in remote areas than in other groups within society.

Photo: Yannick Jooris, UNESCO