Lankans proud to be literate

Over 861 million without access to literacy-EFA Global Monitoring Report 2002:

by Rosanne Koelmeyer Anderson

It is a cause for celebration. Sri Lanka's literacy rate stands at 91.6 per cent as recorded by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics ,July 2002 and its national literacy goal by 2010 is an estimated 98 per cent.

This is great news with World Literacy Day falling on September 8 to see where we stand as a nation. There are now close to four billion literate people in the world , of all children, youth and adults. Setting universal goals for enhancement of literacy rates are easier said than done.

Inadequate resources, strategies and political will are the major contributory factors towards slowing down the desired process and achieving universal targets. However, the question remains, 'why hasn't this been advantageous in reducing the national crime rate, drug abuse, suicides and mental depression overall.

Despite all odds, the goal of the United Nations Decade of Education for sustainable Development(2005-2014) for which UNESCO is the lead agency is to integrate the principles ,values and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning.

This educational effort will encourage changes in behaviour that will create a more sustainable future in terms of environmental integrity,economic viability and a just society for present and future generations.

Literacy is about more than reading and writing - it is about how we communicate in society. It is about social practices and relationships, about knowledge, language and culture.

Literacy - the use of written communication - finds its place in our lives alongside other ways of communicating. Indeed, literacy itself takes many forms: on paper, on the computer screen, on TV, on posters and signs.

Those who use literacy take it for granted - but those who cannot use it are excluded from much communication in today's world.

Why is it that one in five people over the age of 15 cannot communicate through literacy or take any part in the surrounding literate environment? The EFA Global Monitoring Report 2002 spelled out the scope of the challenge ? over 861 million people without access to literacy.

Two thirds of these people are women, with illiteracy thus adding to the deprivation and subordination to which women are already subject to. In an interconnected world where literacy is a key to communication such exclusion is unacceptable.

However, it is interesting to know where Sri Lanka stands after the tsunami which affected many lives and many children have been deprived of their basic necessities thus and are now paying the price with no proper stream lining of needs. But, we are optimistic that we could still maintain these figures despite the shortcomings.

The decade for literacy will focus on the needs of adults with the goal that people everywhere should be able to use literacy to communicate within their own community, in the wider society and beyond. Literacy efforts have so far failed to reach the poorest and most marginalised groups of people the Decade will particularly address such populations, under the banner of Literacy for all: voice for all, learning for all although literacy was recognised as a basic human right over fifty years ago in the Universal Declaration of Rights.

The decade is said to be an opportunity to make a sustained collective effort which will go beyond one-shot programmes or campaigns.

The Literacy Decade is also part of broader international work in education and development. The Education for All (EFA) goal of increasing literacy rates by 50% by 2015 provides the overall target for the Decade, and the Millennium Development Goals.

Furthermore it is stated that policies must provide a framework for local participation in literacy, including multilingual approaches and freedom of expression. National policy environments must link literacy promotion with strategies of poverty reduction and with programmes in agriculture, health, HIV/AIDS prevention, conflict resolution and other social concerns.

It was stated that the introduction of new policies for literacy will be most effective when they are based on the results of empirical research. This will answer questions such as: what is the long-term impact of literacy? How can local communities better participate? What is the extent of civil society engagement in literacy? Studies, databases and papers will make the outcomes of this research widely available.

It was further revealed that strong community ownership of the purposes and processes of literacy would result in its effective use.

This requires good communication between government and communities, inter-community networks, community learning centres and other ways of ensuring that literacies are relevant and useful to people in their daily lives and serve their aspirations while it was felt that better literacy indicators are necessary to show what progress has been made during the decade, both in terms of literacy rates and numbers, and in terms of the impact of literacy.

UNESCO will work with its institutes and its partners to find improved ways of measuring literacy, in local contexts and worldwide.

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