New Delhi (NVI): At the 14th session of UNESCO’s general conference in 1966, the first ever International Literacy Day was declared and since then it has been celebrated annually on September 8, in an effort to highlight the importance of literacy to individuals and communities around the world.
According to recent consensus, about 775 million adults lack the minimum education that is required to be literate and of those, 60.7 million children are out of school or are rare attendees.
According to the UNESCO’s ‘Global Monitoring Report on Education for All’ (2006), South Asia has the lowest regional adult literacy rate, at 58.6 per cent and the causes for this illiteracy range from severe poverty and the prejudice against women.
Since 1967, International Literacy Day (ILD) celebrations have taken place annually around the world to remind the public of the importance of literacy as a matter of dignity and human rights, and to advance the literacy agenda towards a more literate and sustainable society.
International Literacy Day (ILD) 2020 will focus on ‘Literacy teaching and learning in the COVID-19 crisis and beyond’ with a focus on the role of educators and changing pedagogies.
Through the course of the years, the United Nations (UN) has given this day special themes keeping in line with the current environment. Ranging from ‘Literacy and Health’, ‘Literacy and Epidemics’, which focused on communicable diseases such as HIV, to ‘Literacy and Empowerment’ and ‘Literacy and Peace’ a few years later.
The recent Covid-19 crisis has been a stark reminder of the existing gap between policy discourse and reality: a gap that already existed in the pre-Covid-19 era and is negatively affecting the learning of youth and adults who have no or low literacy skills and therefore tend to face multiple disadvantages.
During Covid-19, in many countries, adult literacy programmes were absent in the initial education response plans, so the majority of adult literacy programmes that did exist were suspended with just a few courses continuing virtually, through TV and radio, or in open air spaces.
Most classes and lectures are being conducted online and though that does make a difference, the question of what the future holds in terms of the process of education in unknown.
For the celebration of this Day, the UN is organising online seminars and talks that go over these pertinent questions. There will be two meetings held, one about the ‘Literacy teaching and learning in the COVID-19 crisis and beyond: the role of educators and changing pedagogies’ and another on ‘The Laureates of the UNESCO International Literacy Prizes 2020’.
-CHK
