International Literacy Day, September 8, 2009

September 4, 2009—International Literacy Day is celebrated on September 8 each year, to raise awareness of the importance of reading and writing for all people. This year the focus is on how literacy empowers people and promotes strong participation, citizenship and social development. Here are a few facts that show the crucial role it can play in a country's development:

• Teaching mothers to read can lead to a decrease in infant mortality of up to 50%
• Young people who have completed primary education are less than half as likely to contract HIV as those without education
• Each year of schooling increases a person's earnings by 10%
• No country has ever achieved economic growth without reaching an adult literacy rate of about 40%

• UNESCO International Literacy Day. Get more background on the day and what the international community is doing.
• Education Issue Brief. Get the facts on education's role in development, and what has to be done to achieve universal education.
• Why Does Literacy Matter? A detailed look at the role literacy plays in a country's progress, and the challenges in achieving it.

Video: Higher Education in India. India's higher education system is not producing enough qualified engineers. To change this, the country is pushing universities and colleges to improve their teaching techniques and update their equipment.

Quantity vs. Quality

For a long time, people working on literacy and education were mostly looking at enrollment rates; the emphasis was on getting more and more kids into school. Recently, a big question has risen, which is: Are they learning? Studies have shown that many children are going through the school system but still cannot read. For example, a 2007 study in 4 sub-Saharan African countries showed that the percentage of children in Grade 2 (aged 7 or 8) that had achieved basic reading comprehension was 0%, 4%, 11% and 11%. Pretty disturbing, right?

So, it's not only important to get children in school, but also to ensure that they actually learn something. There are quite a few challenges to this, which include:

Lack of good teachers: Salaries for teachers are often very low, making it difficult to attract qualified teachers in public schools. Many choose to offer private tuitions instead. Also, lack of good infrastructure in rural areas prevents teachers from taking jobs in those locations. In this video interview, an educational consultant in Nigeria talked about the situation in his country.

Lack of quality teaching materials: Textbooks are often outdated or scarce.

Overcrowding: Too many students per classroom is a huge problem in many places. A recent New York Times story focuses on school overcrowding in the Philippines.

High opportunity costs of education: Many parents withdraw their children—especially girls—before they've completed primary school because they need them to help with household chores or look after younger siblings.

Lack of instruction in the students' mother tongue: In some post-colonial countries, teaching takes place in the country's official language. However, many children speak a different language at home and are not exposed to the official language until they start school at around age 5 or 6. Obviously, this puts them at a huge disadvantage when it comes to learning.

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