The UNICEF Innovation Fund announced the global celebrations of International Literacy Day on September 8, 2020 under the theme ‘Literacy, teaching, and learning in the Covid-19 crisis and beyond’, especially on educators’ role and changing pedagogies. The theme focuses on youth and adults as well as highlights literacy learning in a life-long learning perspective. On this occasion, Sri Lankan Education Minister Prof. G.L. Pieris advised all Provincial Educational Secretaries, Provincial Educational Directors, and Zonal Education Directors on conducting literacy programmes at school level.
According to him, at least 1.2 million youths and adults in Sri Lanka are still illiterate, and so the projects that were implemented to increase the literacy should be expanded. School-level access committees to provide sustainable solutions through the national education system should also be increased to achieve the 100 per cent literacy. There is a wide gap between policy discourse and reality, which has been exposed in the recent Covid-19 crisis. Consequently, youth and adults, who had either no or low literacy skills, are now forced to face multiple disadvantages.
Therefore, there is a need to give sensitive attention to literacy rates of countries like North Korea, Cuba, Ukraine, Russia, Poland, and the Philippines, which have obtained higher literacy rates.
Courtesy: dailymirror.lk