International Literacy Day History
The International Literacy Day was decided by the UNESCO at
7th of November in the year 1965 to celebrate it
at 8th of September every year which was celebrated
first time in the year 1966. It was started celebrating allover the world to
emphasize the great importance of the literacy to the individuals, society and
communities. The day is celebrated
specially to rememorize the status of the literacy and adult education to the
international community.
International Literacy Day Celebration:
According to the global monitoring report over education it
is noted that one among the five man and two third women is illiterate. Some
of them h ave minimum literacy skills, some children are still out of school and some are irregularly attending the
school. South and West Asia is noted to have the lowest adult literacy rate of
about 58.6%. The countries with the lowest literacy rate are Burkina Faso, Mali
and Niger.
The day is celebrated having special themes, programs and
goals of education all over the world. The theme of year 2007 and 2008
celebration was the Literacy and Health (strong attention over the epidemics to
prevent people from the communicable diseases like HIV, Tuberculosis, cholera
and Malaria). The theme of the year 2009 and 2010 was the Literacy and
Empowerment of women whereas the theme of 2011 and 2012 celebration was the
Literacy and Peace.
The importance of celebrating the day is to promote the
public consciousness about extraordinary value of written word and requirement to encourage the
literate rate of the society. Some of the writers writing to support literacy
improvement are Margaret Atwood, Paulo Coelho, Philippe Delerm, Paul Auster,
Philippe Claudel, Fatou Diome and many more. Some of the companies, charity
organizations, Global Development Research Center, Rotary International, Montblanc
and the National Institute for Literacy are also involved in supporting the
social literacy. Literacy shapes the life of human beings as well as builds up
their cultural identity.
Why International Literacy Day is celebrated:
Celebrating the International Literacy Day is to promote the
human attention towards the literacy and
know their rights for social and human development. Literacy is as important as
food to be alive and success. It is too necessary to eradicate
the poverty, lowering the child mortality, controlling the population growth,
attaining the gender equality and etc. Literacy has the ability to raise the
family status and hence the country status. It is celebrated to encourage the
people towards getting continuous education and understand their
responsibilities for the family, society and the country.
International Literacy Day Themes:
International Literacy Day celebration takes place on a
specific theme of the year in order to make it effective by executing some
strategic plan to resolve the problems related to the illiteracy all over the
world in many countries. Some of the year wise themes of the International
Literacy Day are mentioned below:
• Theme for 2006 was
“Literacy sustains development” to focus on achieving social progress.
• Theme for 2007 and
2008 was “Literacy and Health” to focus on literacy and epidemics (communicable
diseases like HIV, Tuberculosis, Malaria, etc).
• Theme for 2009-2010
was “Literacy and Empowerment” to focus on gender equality and empowering
women.
• Theme for 2011-2012
was “Literacy and Peace” to focus on importance of literacy for peace.
• The theme for 2013
was “Literacies for the 21st Century” to promote global literacy.
• Theme for 2014 was
“Literacy and Sustainable Development” to promote sustainable development in
the areas of social development, economic growth, and environmental
integration.
• Theme
for 2015 was “Literacy and Sustainable Societies”. • Theme for 2017 - 'Literacy In A Digital World'
Source:https://www.literacyworldwide.org/
