The unfinished business of universal literacy

IPNEd is asking Members to recommit to the promise of quality education for all, which guarantees everyone - children and adults - the opportunity and freedom that comes from literacy.

Since 1967, the annual celebrations of International Literacy Day (ILD) have taken place on 8 September around the world to remind policy-makers, practitioners, and the public of the critical importance of literacy for creating more literate, just, peaceful, and sustainable society.

Literacy is a fundamental human right for all. It lays the foundation to learn other skills and opens the door to the enjoyment of other human rights, greater freedoms, and global citizenship. 

The ambition that everyone should be able to read and write sounds simple, but more than twenty years into the 21st century, the world is still far from achieving that goal.

One in every seven adults - 765 million people - lack basic literacy skills and millions of children risk joining them.

Still out of school

More than twenty years after the world promised, via the Millennium Development Goals, to ensure every child would complete a full course of primary education, one in five children of primary school age in Africa remain out of school.

In school, but not learning

Sadly, access to education doesn't guarantee learning. In fact, 70% of ten year olds in low and middle income countries can’t read and understand a simple sentence.

This is a genuine crisis, for the children who won't learn to read and for their nations which will robbed of the vital skills they need to grow and develop and for their.

Achieving literacy for all

We must keep our promise and ensure that every child is in school and learning and every adult that can’t read has the opportunity to learn to do so.

Later this week, IPNEd will be launching our International Literacy Day briefing which sets out what parliamentarians can do to help solve the learning crisis and ensure that every child learns.

This year, we mark International Literacy Day just weeks before the UN Summit of the Future which will bring world leaders together to forge a new international consensus on how we deliver a better present and safeguard the future.

This will require us all to recommit to the promise of quality education for all, which guarantees everyone - children and adults - the opportunity and freedom that comes from literacy.