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International Literacy Day Background
Celebrated annually on September 8, since 1966, International Literacy Day calls attention to the global effort to promote literacy, and education, as a central United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) mission.
This year, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan advocated for increased efforts to close the education gap, which he calls "a fundamental inequality in our globalizing world." The UN launched the United Nations Literacy Decade in January 2003 - an initiative agreed by all countries to energize work towards reaching the goal of increasing literacy levels by 50 per cent by the year 2015. "Let us rededicate ourselves to playing our full part in that mission," he says.
Following are excerpts from the declaration by UNESCO Director-General, Federico Mayor on International Literacy Day, 1996:
"Today, nearly seven years after the launching of the International Literacy Year in 1990 and the convening of the World Conference on Education for All in Jomtien, Thailand, during the same year, I am pleased to report that significant progress has been made in creating a literate world. Indeed, the number of literates has increased by over 400 million since 1990. This is both a continuation and acceleration of the progress that has been achieved over the past 50 years with the inspiration and, very often, under the leadership of UNESCO. In 1950, when UNESCO first sought to gather statistics on adult illiteracy, it was estimated that roughly three adults in five were literate. By the year 2000, we project that four out of every five adults will be able to read and write. This is progress off historic significance that has been achieved even as the world's population has more than doubled.
"This is an intolerable situation. Illiteracy is not a fact of life, but a consequence of inaction on the part of governments and societies. Its consequences are pervasive and powerful. If we wish to combat poverty, injustice and the violence that so often results from them, we must begin by mobilising minds through education and literacy. The facts are crystal clear. Those societies that, over the past decades, have invested most heavily in the education of their citizens have been the ones that have advanced most rapidly and where the conditions of life have been fundamentally transformed. A literate world is not only one where people can read and write, it is a world in which the human potential has been liberated and placed in the service of progress. There is, in short, no secret about what is required to build a better world for tomorrow. It is increasingly evident that we must begin by investing substantially in improving education today: investing not only our financial resources but our imagination and hope as well. Investing not only in the education of children, but also in the education of parents, especially mothers, who are their children's first teachers and who, throughout childhood and adolescence, continue to play the central role in sustaining the child's motivation for learning. "International Literacy Day must be a celebration of the vast potential of education and literacy, a potential that, when fully exploited, can literally re-make the world".
History
1945 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) founded.
1946 First meeting of the UNESCO General Conference.
1965 World Conference of Ministers of Education on the Eradication of Illiteracy.
1966 Establishment of International Literacy Day upon recommendation of the 1965 World Conference of Ministers.
1967 First UNESCO International Literacy Day celebration.
1975 International Reading Association begins association with UNESCO.
1979 First International Reading Association Literacy Award presented.
1980 Creation of the Noma Prize, by the late Shoichi Noma, a Japanese Publisher
1985 Fourth International Conference on Adult Education.
1989 Establishment of the King Sejong Award by the Republic of Korea.
1990 "International Literacy Year" proclaimed by the United Nations.
1993 International Reading Association Literacy Award presented to the Sebenta National Institute of Swaziland. National teleconference on the importance of professional development opportunities for Chapter 1 teachers.
1994 International Reading Association Award presented to National Centre for Literacy and Adult Education of Malawi. International video teleconference on Lifelong and Family Literacy, Literacy in the Classroom, and Literacy in the 21st Century.
1995 International Reading Association Award presented to Community Academic Services Program (CASP) of the Province of New Brunswick, Canada.
1996 The International Reading Association Literacy Award presented to the Mini-Schools Project in La Saline District of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
1997 5th International Conference on Adult Education, Hamburg Germany.
1998 The Malcolm Adiseshiah International Literacy Prize was created by the Government of India to commemorate the late Malcolm Adiseshiah, former Deputy Director-General of UNESCO and Chairman of the International Literacy Prize Jury.
2000 "Literacy in the Information Age" panel discussion held at the United States Library of Congress in coordination with the International Literacy Day commemoration.
2001 National Adult Literacy Survey was released, the survey reported new information about adult illiteracy in America.
2002 UNESCO's International Literacy Day celebrated for the 38th time with the theme "Literacy as Freedom," which linked literacy to development.
2003-2015 United Nations Literacy Decade - an initiative to energize work towards reaching the goal of increasing literacy levels by 50 per cent by the year 2015.