【明報專訊】On 8th September every year the world celebrates literacy, a fundamental human right.

Basic facts

Date: 8 September

Year of proclamation: 1965

Proclaimed by: UNESCO (聯合國教科文組織)

Aim: To highlight the importance of literacy to individuals, communities and societies

Definition of ''literacy''

Literacy is the state of being able to read and write. UNESCO defines a literate person as ''one who can, with understanding, both read and write a short simple statement on his or her everyday life''. There is no limitation as to the kind of language he or she uses.

Literacy all over the world

According to latest data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), there are 758 million adults (15 years and older) who still cannot read or write a simple sentence, around two-thirds of them are female.

Problems brought by illiteracy

lliteracy is a major hurdle to a country's social and economic development. People who are illiterate have no access to high education, and can thus take up an extremely limited options of occupations. Illiteracy that happens on a national scale significantly drags down a country's productivity.

Illiteracy also greatly impacts public health, since illiterate people generally know less about hygiene and nutritional practices, which can worsen wide range of health issues. Illiteracy is also linked with child mortality.

Efforts to boost literacy

Over the years, various initiatives have been launched to boost literacy. An example is the Early Grade Reading Assessment, an oral student assessment ''designed to measure the most basic foundation skills for literacy acquisition in the early grades: recognising letters of the alphabet, reading simple words, understanding sentences and paragraphs, and listening with comprehension''. The program was launched by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) with the help of donors like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (founded by the Microsoft founder and his wife) and the Global Partnership for Education.

International Literacy Day

International Literacy Day was proclaimed at the World Conference of Ministers on the Eradication of Illiteracy held in Tehran (德黑蘭) in 1965. In the conference it was stated that "Rather than an end in itself, literacy should be regarded as a way of preparing man for a social, civic and economic role". Every year since then, International Literacy Day has been celebrated around the world on the 8 September. This year marks the 50th anniversary of International Literacy Day, and UNESCO is celebrating it under the banner “Reading the Past, Writing the Future”.

The main global celebration of the day will take place at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris in the form of a two-day conference on the 8th and 9th of September, the highlight of which will be the awarding of the Literacy Prizes, which reward excellence and innovation in the field of literacy.