Celebrating International Literacy Day 2020
Every year International Literacy Day is celebrated on September 8 to raise awareness among the people for literacy issues existing locally as well as globally. It is the time when the governments and civil communities can focus on the literacy problems and the remaining literacy challenges.
Even today around 750 million adults over the world can’t read or write and most of them are women.
INTERNATIONAL LITERACY DAY HISTORY
International Literacy Day was formed in 1966 by the declaration of the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) to make people understand the significance of literacy as a matter of nobility and human rights. The idea of International Literacy Day came from the World Conference of Ministers of Education on the elimination of illiteracy held in Tehran in 1965. Even though the development is done, still around 773 million adults around the world lack in basic literacy skills.
THEME OF INTERNATIONAL LITERACY DAY 2020
The theme of International Literacy Day 2020 highlights “Literacy teaching and learning in the COVID-19 and beyond” especially on the role of teachers and their changing pedagogies. As reported by UNESCO “The theme focuses on literacy learning in a long-term learning perspective and that is why it mainly focuses on youth and adults.
During the pandemic situation, there were no adult literacy programs in the initial education response plans so the most adult literacy programs that did present were suspended. UNESCO keeps on playing a major role in upgrading global literacy and promoting International Literacy Day with communities and governments. This year, literacy day will provide an opportunity to talk about how efficient and innovative productivity can be used youth and adult literacy programmes to withstand these pandemic problems and beyond. UNESCO will start a worldwide public dialogue literacy education and learning for adults and youth in the post-COVID-19 period to meet the SDG4 through a virtual meeting.
