Literacy key to sustainable development
The Ministry of Education (MoE) has underscored the importance of literacy to the sustainable development of the society.
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According to the ministry, literacy plays a foundational role in the creation of sustainable, prosperous and peaceful societies.
It further stated that literacy was a cornerstone for improving the individual’s capabilities and resilience and achieving economic growth, social development and environmental protection, which it said would lead to the creation of sustainable, prosperous and peaceful societies.
This was contained in a press statement issued by the Non-Formal Education Division (NFED) of the Ministry of Education (MoE) to commemorate this year’s International Literacy Week.
Literacy the key
Stressing the relevance of literacy, NFED said its skills were a prerequisite for the learning of a broader set of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values required for creating sustainable societies.
NFED also pointed out that poverty, disease and ignorance in the society were all ramifications of illiteracy and essential ingredients of underdevelopment.
The ministry was of the view that poor quality education was leaving a legacy of illiterate societies with increased social vices more widespread than previously believed, adding that population growth, ineffective literacy campaigns, under investment in adult literacy programmes and inappropriate use of language have contributed to this progress.
It, therefore, observed that the role of NFED in providing literacy for sustainable societies was very crucial to the country as a literate is able to contribute meaningfully to social growth.
To better track and advance educational inequalities, the ministry called for improvement in the existing educational information or data sources.
That, NFED said, included school censuses and surveys, learning assessments, household surveys and population censuses by or through the review of questionnaire contents.
In addition, it also advocated the improvement of measures and the socio-economic status, other background characteristics and reforming approaches to sample designs to better identify disadvantaged groups.
“There is the need for us to emphasise the importance of improving on how we identify and respond to the needs of all marginalised groups, whether due to poverty, gender, location or disability” NFED added.
Global Monitoring Report (GMR)
Quoting the Global Monitoring Report (GMR), the ministry said a total of 781 million adults in the world are still illiterate: two-thirds of them (496 million) are women. Among the youth, 126 million are illiterate, of which 77 million are female.
The report further stated that providing all women with primary education would reduce child mortality by a sixth and maternal deaths by two-thirds. It added that it would enable children to live their lives too and there would be 15 per cent fewer children married under the age of 15.
The GMR has also identified a global learning crisis fueled by too few classrooms and well-trained teachers which has left at least 250 million children still not learning the basics, whether they have spent four years in school or not.
The GMR has projected that it will take until 2072 for all the poorest developing countries to be literate.