International Literacy Day: Teaching for peace and equality
On 8 September, International Literacy Day, EI is emphasising the importance of quality teacher training to achieve peace and equality through education, and calls on all governments to live up to their commitment to invest in teacher development and education for all.
According to United Nations figures, 793 million adults continue to lack basic literacy skills; two-thirds of these adults are women. Around 67 million children are not in primary school, while 72 million adolescents are missing out on their right to secondary education. If current trends continue there could be more children out of school in 2015 than there are today.
Girl’s education is particularly sensitive to budget cuts and economic downturns: girls are often the first to be taken out of school when family incomes suffer from an economic crisis, or when the cost of education is too high because of school fees or lack of infrastructure and support.
EI General Secretary, Fred van Leeuwen, condemned this as “an unacceptable situation,” before adding, “hundreds of millions are marginalised and excluded from large parts of social and economic participation because they were, and still are, denied their right to education. The high numbers of out-of-school children and adolescents show that countries are perpetuating a new generation of illiterate people.”
The 2011 UNESCO Education For All Global Monitoring Report (GMR) gives further evidence that another 1.9 million teachers will be needed by 2015 to achieve universal primary education. The document also demonstrates how armed conflict is diverting resources from productive investment in classrooms and teachers to destructive military spending, which amounted to US$1.5 trillion globally in 2009. If rich countries were to transfer just six days’ worth of military spending to development assistance for basic education, they could achieve the goal of putting all children into school by 2015.
Responding to this data, Mr van Leeuwen said: “Governments urgently need to live up to their commitment to invest in teachers and classrooms. They have to enable teachers to become agents of peace and equality, promoting tolerance, understanding and respect for diversity. Realising everyone’s right to quality education is the most important tool of empowerment and development, and vital for creating a dialogue between different perspectives and resolving conflicts justly and peacefully.”
To know more about International Literacy Day, please click here.
