International Literacy Day

Celebrated annually on 08 September, International Literacy Day serves as a powerful reminder of the transformative power of literacy in shaping individuals, families, and societies. The roots of the day can be traced back to 1965 when the World Conference of Ministers of Education on the Eradication of Illiteracy convened in Tehran, Iran. This gathering sparked a global conversation about the critical need to promote literacy worldwide. In response to this growing awareness, UNESCO officially declared September 8th as International Literacy Day during its 14th General Conference in 1966.

The inaugural celebration of International Literacy Day took place on September 8, 1967, marking the beginning of a concerted global effort to combat illiteracy and promote education. Since then, this day has been observed annually, serving as a platform to highlight the importance of literacy as a fundamental human right and a catalyst for personal and societal development.

Literacy is far more than the ability to read and write; it is a cornerstone of human dignity and a gateway to lifelong learning and personal growth. The significance of literacy extends across various aspects of life:

Personal Empowerment: Literacy equips individuals with the tools to access information, understand their rights, and make informed decisions. It fosters critical thinking, enhances problem-solving skills, and boosts self-confidence. For many, literacy is the key that unlocks doors to better employment opportunities, improved health outcomes, and greater social mobility.
Social Integration: In an increasingly interconnected world, literacy facilitates effective communication and promotes mutual understanding among diverse communities. It enables individuals to participate actively in civic life, contribute to democratic processes, and engage meaningfully with their communities.
Economic Development: Literacy is intrinsically linked to economic progress, both at individual and societal levels. A literate workforce is more productive, adaptable, and innovative, driving economic growth and reducing poverty. For individuals, literacy often translates to better job prospects and increased earning potential.
Health and Well-being: Health literacy, a crucial component of overall literacy, empowers individuals to make informed decisions about their health and well-being. It enables people to understand medical information, follow treatment plans, and adopt healthier lifestyles.
Cultural Preservation and Exchange: Literacy plays a vital role in preserving cultural heritage and facilitating cross-cultural exchange. It allows for the documentation and transmission of traditional knowledge, stories, and customs across generations and borders.

The effects of literacy ripple through generations, with particularly profound implications for children and their families:

Early Childhood Development: Literacy begins long before a child enters formal schooling. Early exposure to books, storytelling, and language-rich environments lays the foundation for future learning and cognitive development. Children raised in literate households often have larger vocabularies, stronger language skills, and better school readiness.
Academic Success: Literacy is the bedrock of academic achievement across all subjects. Children who develop strong literacy skills early on are more likely to excel in school, have higher graduation rates, and pursue higher education. This academic success often translates to better career prospects and economic stability in adulthood.
Family Dynamics: When parents are literate, they are better equipped to support their children’s education, help with homework, and engage in meaningful discussions about school and learning. This parental involvement creates a positive feedback loop, reinforcing the value of education within the family unit.
Breaking the Cycle of Poverty: Literacy can be a powerful tool in breaking intergenerational cycles of poverty. Educated parents are more likely to prioritise their children’s education, leading to improved life outcomes for subsequent generations.
Health and Nutrition: Literate parents are better able to understand and implement health and nutrition guidelines, resulting in improved family health outcomes. They can read medication instructions, understand nutritional information, and make informed healthcare decisions.
Social and Emotional Development: Literacy fosters emotional intelligence and social skills. Through reading, children are exposed to diverse perspectives, develop empathy, and learn to navigate complex social situations.
Digital Literacy: In today’s digital age, literacy extends beyond traditional reading and writing to include digital competencies. Digitally literate children are better prepared to navigate the online world safely and leverage technology for learning and future career opportunities.

The theme for International Literacy Day 2025 is “Promoting literacy for a world in transition: Building the foundation for sustainable and peaceful societies.”. This theme emphasises the importance of literacy in navigating a changing world, and highlights how literacy can contribute to building peaceful and sustainable societies. It is also seen as a foundation for development with literacy seen as a crucial building block for progress.

Despite significant progress in recent decades, literacy remains a pressing global challenge. According to UNESCO, as of 2020, at least 773 million young people and adults worldwide lacked basic literacy skills. This staggering figure underscores the urgent need for continued efforts to promote literacy and education globally. Some key statistics and trends include:

Gender Gap: Two-thirds of the world’s illiterate adults are women, highlighting the persistent gender disparities in education.
Youth Literacy: While youth literacy rates have improved significantly, millions of young people still lack basic reading and writing skills.
Regional Disparities: Literacy rates vary widely across regions, with Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia facing the greatest challenges.
Impact of COVID-19: The global pandemic has exacerbated educational inequalities, with an estimated 24 million learners at risk of never returning to formal education.
Digital Divide: As education increasingly relies on technology, the digital divide threatens to widen literacy gaps between those with and without access to digital resources.

Despite these challenges, there have been notable successes in the global literacy movement:

Rising Global Literacy: The global literacy rate has increased dramatically over the past two centuries, from less than 15% in 1820 to over 85% today.
Innovative Programmes: Numerous literacy programs worldwide are making significant impacts, leveraging technology, community engagement, and culturally sensitive approaches to reach underserved populations.
Increased Awareness: International Literacy Day has played a crucial role in raising global awareness about the importance of literacy, spurring action from governments, NGOs, and individuals.
Policy Prioritisation: Many countries have prioritized literacy in their national education policies, allocating resources and implementing targeted interventions to improve literacy rates.

International Literacy Day is marked by a wide range of events and initiatives worldwide, aimed at promoting literacy and highlighting its importance. In the digital age, technology plays an increasingly important role in literacy education. E-learning platforms and online learning tools and apps provide accessible, interactive ways to develop reading and writing skills. E-books and online libraries make literature more accessible to those in remote or underserved areas. Assistive technologies and text-to-speech and speech-to-text tools help individuals with learning disabilities or visual impairments access written content. Educational games and apps make learning to read and write more engaging and interactive for children. Smartphones and tablets enable literacy learning on-the-go, reaching populations that may not have access to traditional educational resources.

As we celebrate the progress made in global literacy, it’s crucial to acknowledge the challenges that remain and look towards future directions. Efforts must focus on the most marginalised populations, including those in conflict zones, remote areas, and extreme poverty. While much attention is given to child literacy, adult literacy programs remain crucial for breaking cycles of illiteracy. Beyond basic reading and writing, there’s a growing need to promote functional literacy skills relevant to modern life and work. As technology becomes increasingly integral to daily life, digital literacy skills are becoming as essential as traditional literacy. Recognising and valuing linguistic diversity in literacy education is crucial for inclusive and effective learning. Ensuring consistent and adequate funding for literacy programs remains a challenge, particularly in developing countries. Improving the quality and quantity of trained literacy educators is essential for sustainable progress.

International Literacy Day serves as both a celebration of progress and a call to action. It reminds us that literacy is not just a fundamental human right but a powerful tool for personal empowerment, social cohesion, and global development. As we look towards the future, it’s clear that the journey towards universal literacy is far from over. It requires the concerted efforts of governments, educators, communities, and individuals worldwide. By investing in literacy, we invest in human potential, paving the way for a more equitable, peaceful, and prosperous world.

In the words often attributed to Margaret Fuller, “Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.” By empowering individuals with the gift of literacy, we are nurturing the leaders, innovators, and change-makers of tomorrow. Let us embrace this mission with renewed vigor and dedication, for in doing so, we are shaping a brighter future for generations to come.

Today is the International Literacy Day. Literacy is a very important as without it, an individual cannot engage in our day-to-day life. Most commonly defined as the ability to read and write, Literacy is not as simple as it sounds. Reading and writing abilities vary across different cultures and contexts, and these too are constantly shifting. Today, reading encompasses complex visual and digital media as well as the printed material. We need to be literate to navigate our daily life, including using our phones, signs outside our homes, prices in a store and many more which we use and do without really thinking too much of it. But beyond the functional level, literacy plays a vital role in transforming people into socially engaged citizens. Being able to read and write means being able to keep up with current events, communicate effectively, and understand the issues that are shaping our world.

International Literacy Day celebrated each year on 8 September, was declared by UNESCO on 26 October 1966 and celebrated for the first time in 1967. Its aim is to highlight the importance of literacy to individuals, communities and societies with celebrations taking place in several countries. About 775 million lack minimum literacy skills; one in five adults are still not literate and two-thirds of them are women; 60.7 million children are out-of-school and many more attend irregularly or drop out.

According to UNESCO’s Global Monitoring Report on Education for All of 2006, South Asia has the lowest regional adult literacy rate at 58.6%, followed by sub-Saharan Africa at 59.7%. Countries with the lowest literacy rates in the world are Burkina Faso at 12.8%, Niger at 14.4% and Mali at 19%. The report shows a clear connection between illiteracy and countries in severe poverty, and between illiteracy and prejudice against women.

The 2021 edition of the International Literacy Day or the ILD will be celebrated under the theme of Literacy for a human-centred recovery: Narrowing the digital divide. The COVID-19 crisis has disrupted the learning of children, young people and adults at an unprecedented scale. It has also magnified the pre-existing inequalities in access to meaningful literacy learning opportunities, disproportionally affecting 773 million non-literate young people and adults. Youth and adult literacy were absent in many initial national response plans, while numerous literacy programmes have been forced to halt their usual modes of operation.

Even in the times of global crisis, efforts have been made to find alternative ways to ensure the continuity of learning, including distance learning, often in combination with in-person learning. Access to literacy learning opportunities, however, has not been evenly distributed. The rapid shift to distance learning also highlighted the persistent digital divide in terms of connectivity, infrastructure, and the ability to engage with technology, as well as disparities in other services such as access to electricity, which has limited learning options.

The pandemic, however, was a reminder of the critical importance of literacy. Beyond its intrinsic importance as part of the right to education, literacy empowers individuals and improves their lives by expanding their capabilities to choose a kind of life they can value. It is also a driver for sustainable development. Literacy is an integral part of education and lifelong learning premised on humanism as defined by the Sustainable Development Goal 4. Literacy, therefore, is central to a human-centred recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been the worst disturbance to education and training systems in a century, with the longest school closures affecting more than 1.6 billion learners at its peak time. By November 2020, the average child had lost 54 percent of a year’s contact time, which could be interpreted as the loss of over a year’s learning if the time of forgetting what was previously acquired is counted. The pandemic and its repercussions have also magnified the pre-existing inequalities in access to meaningful literacy learning opportunities, disproportionally affecting 773 million non-literate young people and adults. With low or no reading and writing skills, they tend to be more vulnerable in managing their health, work, and life. At the same time, the COVID-19 crisis amplified the centrality of literacy to people’s life, work and lifelong learning. Reading and writing skills are essential, for instance, to access life-saving information and sustain livelihoods. In addition, the need for digital skills, which are part of today’s literacy skills, have been recognized for distance learning, a digitally transformed workplace, and participation in a digitalized society. While there is no single internationally agreed definition, digital skills are broadly understood as a range of abilities to use digital devices, communication applications, and networks to access, manage, understand, integrate, communicate, evaluate and create information safely and appropriately in an increasingly technological and information-rich environment. Various aspects of digital skills are increasingly becoming indispensable to be literate. However, many young people and adults are digitally non-literate, including those who lack basic reading and writing skills. In Europe, 43 percent of adults lack the basic digital skills required to participate in distance digital learning. As acquisition of digital skills involves complex cognitive processes, these emerging skills demand calls for ensuring an adequate level of reading and writing skills, the integration of digital skills into literacy programmes, if appropriate, and the consideration of the inter-relations between these skills, kinds of technology and teaching approaches to be adopted, as well as learners’ motivation, life situations, contexts, and cultures.

ILD 2021 will explore how literacy can contribute to building a solid foundation for a human-centred recovery, with a special focus on the interplay of literacy and digital skills required by non-literate youth and adults. It will also explore what makes technology-enabled literacy learning inclusive and meaningful to leave no one behind. By doing so, ILD2021 will be an opportunity to reimagine future literacy teaching and learning, within and beyond the context of the pandemic.

ILD2021 will be celebrated across the world to uphold the right to literacy and foster the acquisition of literacy and digital skills by youth and adults for a human-centred recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. Some key questions that ILD 2021 will ask will include questions on what are inclusive and good policies, measures and interventions to put literacy, and possibly also digital skills, at the heart of a human-centred recovery from the COVID-19 crisis and to narrow the digital divide and how can the learning of digital skills be integrated into technology-enabled literacy programmes in a meaningful manner as well as how can governments and other agencies mobilise adequate technical and financial support for the promotion of literacy programmes, including the ones that integrate digital skills learning?

Hopefully the efforts that ILD2021 undertakes will increase awareness of the importance of literacy and digital skills for a human-centred recovery and possible ways to make policies, measures and interventions for youth and adult literacy better and more inclusive to counter the digital divide and key issues are identified and new ideas generated for reimagined literacy teaching and learning that integrate literacy and digital skills.

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International Literacy Day