International Literacy Day – Sustain the commitment

By Jaya Shankar VS

Globally, the International Literacy Day is celebrated on September 08 every year. First proclaimed by UNESCO in 1965, the first International Literacy Day was celebrated on September 08, 1966. Through this Day, UNESCO reminds the global countries of the status of literacy and adult learning.

The theme for this year’s International Literacy Day is “The Power of Literacy.” This means that this year, the spotlight will be on the empowering role of literacy and its importance for participation, citizenship and social development. Literacy and Empowerment is the theme for the 2009-2010 biennium of the United Nations Literacy Decade. In January 2002, the United Nations General Assembly, through a resolution, proclaimed the ten year period beginning 1 January 2003 as the United Nations Literacy Decade. According to the UN, in declaring the Decade, it aims to increase literacy levels and to empower all people everywhere and international community recognised that the promotion of literacy is in the interest of all, as part of efforts towards peace, respect and exchange in a globalising world.

Despite many and varied efforts, the literacy figures across the world look alarming. According to UN statistics there are close to four billion literate people in the world today. And some 776 million adults lack minimum literacy skills, which mean that one in five adults are still not literate; 75 million children are out-of-school and many more attend irregularly or drop out. About 35 countries have a literacy rate of less than 50% or a population of more than 10 million people who cannot read nor write. 85% percent of the world’s non-literate population resides in these countries, and two-thirds are women and girls.

What is literacy?
The definition of literacy and a literate person according to UNESCO is wide and does not stop to mean the ability to read and write only. A literate person is one, who can with understanding both read and write a short simple statement relevant to his everyday life, and capable of critical understanding of men's situation in the world. Literacy is not an end in itself but a means of personal liberation and development and extending individuals educational efforts involving overall inter-disciplinary responses to concrete problems. Literacy is way of acquiring skills to improve their economic status and general well being and imbibing values of national integration, conservation of environment, women's equality, observance of small family norms, etc.

Why literacy is important?
Literacy is not just about learning, it is an empowered tool to eradicate poverty and a means for social and human development. Educational opportunities depend on literacy. Literacy is at the heart of basic education for all, and essential for eradicating poverty, reducing child mortality, curbing population growth, achieving gender equality and ensuring sustainable development, peace and democracy. There are good reasons why literacy is at the core of Education for All (EFA). A good quality basic education equips pupils with literacy skills for life and further learning; literate parents are more likely to send their children to school; literate people are better able to access continuing educational opportunities; and literate societies are better geared to meet pressing development.

Hence literacy is seen as an effective way to enlighten a society and equip it to facing the challenges of life in a better way, raise the standard of personal living, innovate and help change the society.

Total literacy needs combined efforts
According to the UN, literacy is a human right and a cause for celebration. While the world community has made rapid progress in the literacy programmes in their respective regions, achieving total literacy is still an elusive target. Apart from the customary bottlenecks being experienced in some countries like population growth, infrastructure inadequacies and other factors, the grim repercussions of the present economic crisis has also slowed down the progress of the total literacy drive.

According to the UN, it calls for a combination of ambitious goals, sufficient and parallel efforts, adequate resources and strategies, and continued estimation of the work in progress and renewed political will and for doing things differently at all levels - locally, nationally and internationally – and an understanding of the present economic crisis and continued support to achieve the goal of total literacy around the world.

Literacy in India
In India, the literacy rate is still far from being satisfactory. According to the UN Millennium Development Goals Indicators, the literacy rate in the country is still below the global threshold levels of 75 percent. While there has been a marked improvement in literacy in India since independence thanks to the many efforts by the government and NGOs alike, the progress is however being pulled back by the rapid increase in population, poverty, gender discrimination, malnutrition, lack of infrastructural facilities, qualified teachers and the most recent economic crisis.

Government initiatives and challenges
Among the various initiatives by the government for providing education to children and youth, the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan scheme was envisioned in 2001 with a view to ensure that all children in the age group 6–14 years attend school and complete eight years of schooling by 2010. However, there is a glitch here. The government’s recent promise to enact the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill, which seeks to make education a fundamental right of every child in the age group of six to 14 years, needs to be amended to also include children between 0-6 years of age. The reason is poverty. In many Indian towns and villages, children, by the time they reach 6 years of age, the poverty in their families force their parents to send them to petty jobs instead to schools for primary education! To avoid this from happening, the bill in its present avatar needs to be amended before it is enacted into law. Other programmes by the government include the adult education programme, and the district primary education programme.

Another reason for the unhealthy literacy rate in India is the increasing percentage of school dropouts, particularly at the primary and upper primary levels. Again, poverty in families is the main reason for this. To arrest this downward trend in literacy development, the government is running the mid-day meals programme since 1995 to attract children to schools.

Sustain the literacy initiatives
During this period of global economic slowdown, the governments and private players have to be cautious in not to downplay the significance and importance of literacy programmes in their respective countries. Continuous funds flow has to be ensured along with efforts to continue the existing programmes and quicker launching of future initiatives should be considered. This calls for stringent laws to remove the bottlenecks and help the progress and success of literacy programmes.

The government has to step up its efforts in the implementation of policy decisions for tougher laws to abolish child labour, effective implementation of compulsory primary education in rural and urban areas, solving infrastructural problems, providing adequate and continued training to teachers, introducing and sustaining many practical literacy schemes, hassle-free government support to private players and NGOs in literacy initiatives, curbing the commercialisation of education and higher education in particular, and a unified code of conduct for schools, academic institutions and colleges and more importantly the political will to do it. And the International Literacy Day on September 08 is just the perfect day to reiterate our commitment for total literacy and help people get out of poverty, and malnutrition and provide equal employment opportunities and put the world back on its tracks of development.