Archive for Global Literacy

A woman teacher and 10-year veteran of the profession, who did not want to be named, was clearly frustrated. "I find it harder to control the class," she admitted outside the makeshift school of 50 primary-age children in cyclone-affected Kunchankone, one of the worst-hit townships in Myanmar's Yangon Division.

Two months after Cyclone Nargis struck, leaving more than 138,000 dead or missing, teachers are seeing first-hand the problems children face in returning to their studies. Almost half her students show signs of difficulty concentrating on their lessons. "They don't seem to hear or respond to my questions very often in class," the teacher said.

While playing outside, some of the children rush back into the makeshift school of bamboo and plastic sheeting at the slightest sight of a dark cloud or hint of rain. "I don't know how to help them," the teacher said. According to Michael Bociurkiw, a spokesman for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Bangkok, "One of the best ways to help children to return to normalcy is to get them back into the classrooms." Read more of their plight at IRIN News online.

New newspapers—some backed by governments, others by business moguls and international conglomerates—are springing up from Rwanda to Tajikistan, attracting readers and advertising revenues. In many of these markets, increasing literacy rates dovetail with growing disposable income to create millions of new daily readers.

Reading a newspaper is something to aspire to, believe media executives in India, one of the fastest growing newspaper markets instead of a throwback to a bygone era as it is perceived in much of the West.

"Anyone who can read or write is still looked at with a bit of awe" in many markets in India, says Rajesh Kalra, a veteran journalist who is now chief editor of IndiaTimes, the internet arm of Times Group, which publishes The Times of India. This has a circulation of 3.5 million and claims to be the biggest English-language paper in the world. When people first learn how to read, they want to let people know, Kalra says, and "the first thing you want to do is be seen to be reading a newspaper." Read more in The Independent online.

Outside a small pharmacy in Quetta, the dusty capital of Pakistan’s vast southwestern Balochistan Province, Zaitoon Bibi, 25, clutches two bottles of medicine. “One is for the cough and one is for fever. I hope I can remember which is which,” she says, looking worried.

Zaitoon’s two children, girls ages 4 and 2, have been suffering from fever for over a week. “I was finally able to persuade my husband they needed medicine,” she said.

Like thousands of other women across Pakistan, Zaitoon finds her inability to read a significant handicap in her daily life. The lettering on the bottle makes no sense to her and she must depend on help from neighbors to read the instructions on dosage. Read more in this IRIN News article at One World South Asia online.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Regional Conference in Support of Global Literacy began today (Wednesday, May 14, 2008) in Baku, Azerbaijan, under the auspices of Mehriban Aliyeva, president of Heydar Aliyev Foundation and Goodwill Ambassador of UNESCO and the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO).

Azerbaijani Minister of Education Misir Mardanov said the UNESCO Sub-Regional Conference formed part of a series of six regional or sub-regional conferences supporting global literacy. UNESCO organized the fifth conference in the series in Baku, which covers Europe and targets 31 countries of the region. The conference is focusing on various literacy issues, including adult learning in today’s world; assessment, measurement, and evaluation of literacy levels and basic competencies; as well as other pedagogical approaches. Read more at the Azeri Press website.

Outside a small pharmacy in the dusty capital of Pakistan’s vast southwestern Balochistan Province, Zaitoon Bibi, 25, clutches two bottles of medicine. “One is for the cough and one is for fever. I hope I can remember which is which,” she says, looking worried.

Like thousands of other women across Pakistan, Zaitoon finds her inability to read a significant handicap in her daily life. The lettering on the bottle makes no sense to her and she must depend on help from neighbours to read the instructions on dosage.

In the low-income shanty town where Zaitoon and her husband, a labourer, live, literate neighbours are not easy to find. According to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), literacy still stands at only 50 percent in Pakistan. Read more from this report on the IRIN website.

The new government of Pakistan plans to introduce a uniform education system in the country by integrating all prevailing systems into a standard system. In February, 16 political parties signed a joint declaration on “Education For All” (EFA), which called for more than a 10% budget allocation for the education sector. EFA is an international movement and Pakistan is signatory to the EFA Declaration and has promised to achieve EFA targets by 2015.

The EFA targets included early childhood and care, primary education for all, life skills, a 50% increase in the adult literacy rate, elimination of gender disparity in education, and improving the quality of education. Pakistan also plans to set up one girls school in each union council and to promote a culture of reading. Read more about the initiative in The (Pakistan) Daily Times.

In 2000 the Malian government signed on to the United Nations Education for All goals to help 50% more adults become literate by 2015, but eight years on still only 30% of Malian adults can read or write, and the government is yet to outline its strategy to address the problem.

“We have very low literacy rates in all languages here in Mali, and we know we need to make much faster progress,” Oumar Cissé, communications adviser at the Mali Ministry for Women and Children, told IRIN news.

Mali is just one of six countries (alongside Niger, Chad, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Afghanistan) in which under 40% of adults are literate, according to UNICEF. Read more about the daunting challenges facing Mali at IRIN News online.

For more than two decades, 250 historians and specialists labored to produce the first six volumes of the General History of Latin America, an exhaustive work financed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), created to preserve global culture and heritage. Then, over the course of two years, UNESCO paid to destroy many of those books and nearly 100,000 others by turning them to pulp, according to an external audit.

UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura said it was “completely incomprehensible and inappropriate” that some of the organization’s “most important and successful collections” were ordered destroyed, including histories of humanity and Africa, and surveys of ancient monuments. It was unclear who was responsible, he said. “We have launched an inquiry, consulting publications officers of the period, now retired, in order to discover the reasons which led them to take this decision and not to consider other options,” the audit report quotes him as saying. Read more in The Washington Post online.

At least 10 schools have been attacked by unidentified gunmen in different parts of Afghanistan in the past three weeks, Ministry of Education (MoE) officials told IRIN. The armed assailants are believed to be associated with Taliban insurgents. MoE statistics show there were 2,450 “terrorist” attacks on schools from March 2006 to February 2008. In the same period 235 schoolchildren, students, teachers, and other education workers were killed, and 222 wounded.

About 500 schools have remained closed, particularly in the volatile south where Taliban insurgency has also hindered humanitarian and development access. Up to 300,000 students cannot go to school because of insecurity and threats, an MoE spokesman said. Taliban insurgents oppose female education and say the school curriculum is “un-Islamic,” a charge rejected by the Afghan government and moderate Islamic scholars. Read the article in IRIN News online.

Fatima Saleh, 45, learned to read and write only a year ago: “We were like cows. Whenever I saw anything written, I wanted to read it but I couldn’t. I could not even write my own name. Now I feel as though I am born again.”

Fatima lives in the Sanhan District of Sanaa, Yemen, where there are 50 UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF)-supported literacy centers, with 2,068 female students. The centers are part of a UNICEF project to accelerate girls’ education. There are also 39 literacy centers in the governorates of Abyan, al-Hudeidah and Lahj, teaching 945 illiterate women. All the centers were opened in September 2006 and are scheduled to run until September 2008. Read how the low-cost centers are helping women learn how to read and write in IRIN News online.

Throughout April, UNESCO is holding an online discussion forum on “Quality Education to End Exclusion” within the framework of UNESCO’s support to 2008 Global Action Week (21-27 April 2008). Topics being discussed include the following: Quality Education for All, Enhancing Learning, Faces of the Excluded, Inclusive Education in Action, and Voices of Youth. The latter is a special space for young people to exchange their views. The forum is moderated in English, but people are welcome to post comments in French or Spanish.

To join the forum, visit the following page on the UNESCO website.

Sitting on a plastic mat in an outdoor classroom at a site for people displaced by violence outside the town of Goz Beida in southeastern Chad, Ibrahim Abdoulaye Moussa has reason to pay attention in class. “I’m in school to save my country,” said the boy, one of 180,000 displaced Chadians scattered around the vast semi-desert east of the country. “I dream of being president.” At 14 years old he is now in Grade 2 of primary school.

Over the last year and a half, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have begun building an education system for Chadian children displaced by inter-communal fighting and cross-border attacks by Sudanese militias. The challenge is enormous. There is little infrastructure, few teachers, and limited interest in education from the government or the international community. Read about the situation at IRIN News online.

How were students in Scandinavian countries able to score so high on a recent international test of math and science skills? A U.S. delegation led by the Consortium for School Networking recently toured Scandinavia in search of answers, according to an article by Meris Stansbury in eSchool News.

The delegation found that educators in Finland, Sweden, and Denmark all cited autonomy, project-based learning, and nationwide broadband Internet access as keys to their success. What the delegation didn't find in those nations were competitive grading, standardized testing, and top-down accountability, all of which are common in U.S. education.

For further information, read the full article.

About 650,000 or half of all children in Darfur do not receive an education, despite efforts by various organizations to provide schooling in camps and towns across the western Sudanese region, an international NGO said. “Education is the foundation for economically viable and more peaceful societies. But the international community has been loath to fund schooling in conflict situations,” Charles MacCormack, president of Save the Children US, said in a statement on 27 February. “This is shortsighted.”

In West Darfur State alone, 200,000 children come of school age every year—of whom 22,440 are being assisted by Save the Children to attend classes. “We cannot afford to wait to begin education programs until violence ceases and families can return home,” MacCormack said. “What about the children whose time for school is now? Are they to be left by the wayside of history?” Read more at IRIN News online.

Government-funded schools in Jordan are accommodating 24,000 Iraqi students, causing massive pressure on the education system, according to Minister of Education Taysir Nueimi. Nueimi said the high number of Iraqi students had created financial and logistical difficulties for the education sector, and urged the international community to provide more assistance to Jordan. Read more about the huge influx of Iraqi students at IRIN News online.

It happened 20 years ago, but Rachel Douki remembers the humiliating feeling, the tears that stung her eyes. That day she went to buy herself a skirt and blouse at the Ata store in downtown Jerusalem. Proudly, she pulled out her new checkbook, the first one she ever had, and gave it to the cashier. “Write whatever is needed, I'll sign,” she said. But the cashier refused. “You have to write, not me,”she said. Ashamed, Douki left the items at the register and ran from the store.

Now, at age 66, Douki has learned to read. She and her sister, Hanna Reuveni, have been attending a basic education class at the community offices in Jerusalem’s Baka neighborhood. Around 40 women aged 55 to 75 take part in morning or evening classes. Read how they are learning to read at Haaertz.com.

A World Bank report says the quality of education in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has not kept up with pressing economic challenges and urged reforms in the sector.

“The relationship between education and economic growth in the MENA has remained weak, and the divide between education and unemployment has not been bridged,” according to the February 4, 2008 report, released in Amman. Read more in IC Publications online.

Two weeks into the new term Tatenda Marimire, 13, has spent more time as an unpaid errand boy for his school in Harare, Zimbabwe, than getting to grips with algebra, because there are no teachers. Like most civil servants, educators have increasingly stayed away from work to seek other sources of income to survive hyperinflation.

“We are spending most of the time cutting grass, cleaning dormitories and running errands for members of staff that have reported for duty, and this makes us feel like young workers without salaries,” Tatenda complained. “We don’t know where the teachers are and if we will manage to learn at all.”

The Zimbabwean government has been struggling to pay its employees inflation-related salaries and the education sector has been one of the worst affected by the eight-year economic crisis. Read more at IRIN News online.

Education was the prime focus in many sessions on the second day of the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland. In a session chaired by Princess Lolwah Al-Faisal, general supervisor of the Jeddah-based Effat College, panelists were of the view that education must address both the basic skills—the skills required for a better life—and the skills needed for dialogue with others.

During the sessions, it was revealed that about 93 million children remain out of school at primary age and almost 800 million adults cannot read or write. Panelists said defining what it means to have a better kind of life makes it possible to define what education is about. “But there is a common problem: We are all suffering from insecurity,” said former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami. “The media has replaced the classroom as the main delivery channel for education. Cyberspace has become the learning space.” Read more in Arab News online.

Thousands of Kenyan students have still not started the new school year since the 27 December poll results plunged parts of the country into chaos, raising concerns about the effect massive displacement and continued instability could have on education. “Many of the teachers in the region are from ethnic communities that have left the Rift Valley in their thousands,” Bishop Jackson ole Sapit, who covers eight districts in Kenya’s western Rift Valley Province, told IRIN. “Many of those who left told us they would seek transfers to areas where they felt safer, which is likely to cause us great problems in the long term.”

Parents of children in camps in Narok North district said they were too scared to send their children to local schools in case they were attacked by rival communities or unruly youths. One camp, in the compound of the district commissioner, has more than 1,800 residents—who said none of the displaced children was in school. Read about the disruption in Kenya at IRIN News.

Cellphone novels, composed on phone keypads by young women, have become a hot item in Japan, according to an article by Norimitsu Onishi appearing in The New York Times. Of last year's 10 best-selling novels in Japan, five were originally cellphone novels, mostly love stories written in abbreviated text messaging style with little plotting or character development.

The new genre is so successful that some are questioning whether it will hasten the decline of traditional Japanese literature. To learn more, read the full article.

On January 8, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon emphasized that 2008 should be the year of the “bottom billion,” citing the need for renewed determination to address the needs of the world's poor who have been left behind by global economic growth.

“We must address ourselves to the needs of the weak, the disadvantaged, those who have been excluded from the mainstream international community,” he said during his first press conference of 2008. “And so I say, let 2008 be the year of the ‘bottom billion.’” The “bottom billion” refers to the phrase used by some economists to describe the poorest of the world’s poor—the nearly one billion left behind by global economic growth.

Noting that most of the world’s poorest people live in Africa or small developing islands of Asia with incomes of less than $1 a day, he pledged to work over the coming year to strengthen the UN's role in development. For further information, visit the United Nations Information Centre website.

About 50% of primary and 80% of secondary level students drop out of school in Bangladesh, according to a report released last week by the Campaign for Popular Education (CAMPE), a Bangladeshi non-governmental organization (NGO). The report entitled Education Watch 2006 refuted the government’s claim that primary education was free in Bangladesh.

The report said 59% of total spending per child in government primary schools and 71% of spending per child in government-assisted secondary schools came from parents. The report said rich families were able to spend more on their children’s education, resulting in a growing educational gap between rich and poor. Read the article in IRIN News.

Critics say donors at a recent high-level meeting failed to make firm funding commitments for improving education, particularly in impoverished, fragile and war-torn countries, making it highly unlikely the world will meet ambitious education goals by the 2015 deadline. “I cannot be very optimistic,” Koïchiro Matsuura, director-general of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), said at a press conference on December 13 in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, at the close of the three-day meeting of the High-Level Group on Education for All, which brought together education ministers, donors and development partners. While developing countries agreed to allocate 10% of budgets to education, donor countries could not agree to include a specific percentage of budgets for education aid. Read more at IRIN News online.

During a three-day rampage in 2003 following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, looters pillaged and burned the Iraqi National Library and Archive, stealing hundreds of rare, centuries-old Islamic documents and texts. Some four years later, the library's recovery is exceeding even the most optimistic predictions, according to an article by Troy McMullen on ABC News.com.

"Today the library is better than before the war," says Saad Eskander, a Baghdad-born ethnic Kurd who has run the archive since 2003. Eskander has managed to keep sectarian divisions out of the library by fostering a sense of national pride among his young employees. "The library is a sympol of hope," he says. Groups from several countries have supplied aid to the archive.

For further information, read the full article.

Egypt, Iraq, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan, and Yemen participated in a regional meeting on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s Literacy Initiative for Empowerment (LIFE) from December 3-6 in Marrakech, Morocco. A 10-year initiative within the United Nations Literacy Decade, LIFE aims to accelerate literacy efforts 35 selected countries by 2015. LIFE was launched in the Arab countries at the first regional LIFE meeting in Sana’a, Yemen, in March 2006. Among other activities, this second meeting reviewed progress and discussed a refined LIFE implementation strategy as well as analyzing innovative approaches to literacy and non-formal education. Two other regional LIFE meetings are planned for early 2008 in the Asia and Pacific Region (Dhaka, January 21-24, 2008) and in the African region (Maputo, January 29-31, 2008). For more information, visit the portal.

The Canadian Organization for Development through Education (CODE), the John Dau Foundation, and the International Book Bank have collaborated, with the support of the International Reading Association, in a new program called ProjectLoveSudan to send much-needed school supplies to the South Sudan in Africa.

The South Sudan is recovering from a long civil war and is beginning to rebuild its medical and educational facilities. The John Dau Foundation, named after one of the Lost Boys of Sudan and the founder of this charitable organization, is participating in this rebuilding process in his home village in Duk County, South Sudan. Schools are being built and school supplies are in desperate need. School materials such as a student Project Love kit containing a notebook, a pencil, a ruler, and an eraser or a Teacher Kit would be much appreciated in a school that lacks even the basics in educational resources.

Project Love encourages teachers and others to participate in this worthwhile venture by registering their class, school, council, or community/youth organization. You can find further information at the project webpage.

In some parts of Mansehra District in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), of Pakistant, the familiar early morning scenes of children going to school have changed. Rather than regular school uniforms, often topped with a white dopatta (head scarf) or shawl traditionally worn by schoolgirls, more and more of all but the youngest girls are donning the head-to-toe burqa, or full-length veil. “This is part of the ‘Talibanisation’ taking place across the NWFP,” said Uzma Hammad, 30, a teacher and social activist in Mansehra District. “We are all terrorized by it,” she said. Mansehra District, about 125 kilometers northeast of Peshawar, has a literacy rate of over 36%, among the highest in NWFP. According to official figures, in the district capital, Mansehra town, 60% of boys and 39% of girls are enrolled in schools. Read about the effects of intimidation in the province at IRIN News.

The latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey of the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds, conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), shows that some countries have seen significant improvements in student performance since 2000, according to an OECD news release. Korea further increased its strong reading performance between 2000 and 2006 by 31 score points, the equivalent of almost a school year, mainly by raising the proportion of top-performers. Poland increased its reading performance by 29 score points over the same period. Mexico and Greece saw significant improvements in mathematics performance between 2003 and 2006.

However, across the OECD area as a whole learning outcomes have generally remained flat, while expenditure on education in OECD countries rose by an average of 39% between 1995 and 2004. The survey also revealed widespread pessimism among secondary school students about environmental challenges and limited enthusiasm for scientific careers.

Based on tests carried out among 400,000 students in 57 countries in 2006, the latest PISA survey focuses particularly on students’ abilities in comprehending and tackling scientific problems. It also provides an update on performance in reading and mathematics compared with surveys in 2000 and 2003. For further information, visit the OECD website.

U.S. fourth-graders have lost ground in reading ability compared with kids around the world, according to results of a global reading test. Test results released Wednesday, November 28, 2007, showed U.S. students, who took the test last year, scored about the same as they did in 2001, the last time the test was given—despite an increased emphasis on reading under the No Child Left Behind law. Still, the U.S. average score on the Progress in International Reading Literacy test remained above the international average. Ten countries or jurisdictions, including Hong Kong and three Canadian provinces, were ahead of the United States this time. In 2001, only three countries were ahead of the United States. Read The Associated Press article.

Girls outpace boys in reading literacy across all countries. Children's enjoyment of and appreciation for reading is on the decline. Countries can implement changes to improve their students' performance. These are three of the key findings from the 2006 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), released earlier today.

Approximately 215,000 fourth-grade level students across 40 countries participated in the study, making PIRLS one of the largest international assessments of reading literacy. In addition, PIRLS collected extensive information about home, school, and national influences on how well students learn to read, and queried parents and caregivers about their children's early literacy activities.

The findings offer valuable information to educators and policy makers worldwide. For further information, see the PIRLS report page.

The hunger of the seemingly healthy and well-groomed students at Moruthane Secondary School, about 80 kilometers south of Lesotho’s capital, Maseru, is at first not apparent, but as the morning progresses they become listless and their concentration lapses. Their teacher, Nigerian national Yemi Ajijedidun, 32, told IRIN, “They are not bad students; they are bright, but they are hungry.” The learners, aged 14 to 16, are enthusiastic about their education, and the packed rudimentary concrete-block classroom, which has a few desks but no electricity, is testament to their desire to learn, but educators acknowledge that the greatest obstacle to learning is hunger. Mountainous Lesotho, surrounded entirely by South Africa, is experiencing one of its worst droughts in three decades. Read the article in IRIN News.

Shaheb Mia, 17, collects rubbish on the crowded streets of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Although he can write his name in Bengali and English and count, he has never learned to read or write. “I went to our village school for three years. Then my father abandoned us. My mother and I left our home for Dhaka. In Dhaka there is no time for me to go to school. If I go to school, I starve,” he explained. Primary school dropout rates in Bangladesh, with a population of 150 million, have always been high, but new research suggests numbers are increasing. According to a study conducted by 10 NGOs, with the Commonwealth Education Fund, the dropout rate has increased from 33% in 2002 to 47% in 2006. Moreover, the net enrollment of 6 to 10-year-olds declined to 93 percent in 2005 from 97 percent in 2002. Read about the problem at IRIN News.

English primary children compare well in reading and science with other countries, but “middling” in maths, today’s (November 2) primary review of international standards shows. But the long tail of underachievement is a concern. According to the researchers at Cambridge University, “a consistent and disturbing factor” in England’s results across all three subjects is a wide spread of scores, signifying a much bigger gap between high and low attaining pupils than in many other countries. Read the article at Guardian Unlimited.

India’s Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari expressed concern over the low literacy level among Muslims, and exhorted the community to confront the evil of ignorance by focusing on “autonomous correction of social customs hampering progress.” He spoke at the convocation ceremony of Jamia Milia Islamia in New Delhi. He said Muslims in India today number about 150 million and constitute 13.4% of the populace. “They are more urbanized than the general population. On the other hand, the literacy rate among Muslims is 59.1%, against a national average of 65.1; it is even lower in the case of female literacy.” Read the article at NDTV.com.

In support of its efforts to achieve global literacy, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has launched its new Literacy Portal. The portal consolidates UNESCO’s literacy program and serves as a gateway to sharing information on projects and activities around the world. The Portal aims to enhance UNESCO’s coordination of Education for All (EFA), the United Nations Literacy Decade (UNLD) and the Literacy Initiative for Empowerment (LIFE), a 10-year global strategic framework for achieving UNLD goals. Visit the portal.

In 1998, Microsoft’s 35-year-old Director of Business Development for the Greater China Region took a vacation that changed his life. Trekking through a remote Himalayan village, he was invited by a local teacher to visit their school. John Wood was shocked to see the school’s 20 tattered books were locked away to protect them from the students. “It was an experience I’ll never forget,” says Wood, who founded the award-winning, nonprofit organization Room to Read to give the world’s children the lifelong gift of education. Since Room to Read’s inception in 2000, 1.3 million in kids in Vietnam, Laos, India, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Zambia now have access to enhanced education infrastructure. As Wood says, “Education is the ticket out of poverty. Who hasn’t had one relative in their family that broke the cycle of poverty by betting educated?” Read more or visit www.roomtoread.org.

The literacy rate in Kenya continues to be one of the lowest in the world. Lack of libraries reflect the dismal numbers: 68% for males and 58% for females, according to the American Friends of Kenya organization. But the most unlikely candidates—two 16-year-old high school juniors who live a world away—could help change that. Megan Adams and Danielle Rodriguez, who have never been to Africa, are on a mission. They searched online for an organization to work with and were impressed by the programs American Friends of Kenya sponsored. After talking with the executive director, they created their own fundraising initiative called Literacy Leads to Hope. Now, the teens are trying to raise $120,000 to help build a library in Thika, Kenya. Read about their efforts at The St. Petersburg Times website.

October 5 marks World Teachers' Day, and Education International invites all to celebrate the importance of teachers throughout the world. In observance of this special day for teachers, EI and others make the following demands on behalf of teachers: a decent working environment, living wages, equal pay and equal rights for women, initial and ongoing professional development, involvement in policy-making, and collective bargaining to defend and enhance teachers' rights.

To mark World Teachers' Day, EI and several United Nations agencies have released a joint comunique. To access this communique, visit the following page on the UNESCO website.

Schools should set aside at least 30 minutes a day for silent reading, and all 11-year-olds’ reading ability should be tested when they start secondary school, a leading education figure will say today. In a speech at the National Conference on Accelerated Learning, the chairman of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, Sir Cyril Taylor, will say there is still a “serious problem” with literacy levels in schools in spite of “much good work.” Read more of this article at Guardian Unlimited.

With her tiny earphones and slim digital player, Jakarta office worker Mira Indriarti looks like any other young music lover—except she’s not listening to the latest tunes, but to a recording of the Koran. Digital Koran is increasingly popular in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, where such gadgets sell especially well during the month of Ramadan, when reading the scripture is an essential part of the observance. Indriarti said she bought the gadget because she wanted to study the Koran to be a better Muslim. "It's uncomfortable if I read a Koran book on the bus and people around me may look at me in amazement." The device, the size of an iPod digital player, carries the entire text of the Koran, in Arabic with an Indonesian translation, and its audio recitation. Read more at c/net news.com.

One Laptop Per Child, an ambitious project to bring computing to the developing world’s children, has considerable momentum. Years of work by engineers and scientists have paid off in a pioneering low-cost machine that is light, rugged and surprisingly versatile. The early reviews have been glowing, and mass production is set to start next month. Orders, however, are slow. That might change with the introduction of a new marketing program, called “Give 1 Get 1,” in which Americans and Canadians can buy two laptops for $399. One of the machines will be given to a child in a developing nation, and the other one will be shipped to the purchaser by Christmas. Read more about the details of this plan in this article from The New York Times.

A program to improve Aboriginal literacy, school attendance, and achievement in Australia has been a dismal failure and may even have made things worse. An evaluation of the Partners for Success program, introduced in Queensland in 2003, found the gap between indigenous and non–indigenous achievement had widened in six of the nine benchmarks. The report also concludes that turning the situation around would involve tackling the causes of poverty and associated disadvantages—such as poor nutrition and fatigue, loss of hope, and an absence of aspiration for a better life. Read the article in The Australian.

In preparation for World Teachers Day on October 5, Education International has launched a new website featuring background information, resources, and more. This year, the World Teachers Day campaign revolves around the theme "Better working conditions for teachers mean better learning conditions for learners." In conjunction with that theme, Education International has identified six key demands on behalf of teachers: a decent working environment, a living wage, equal pay and equal rights for women, initial and ongoing professional development, involvement in policy making, and collective bargaining to defend and enhance teachers' rights.

For further information, visit the World Teachers Day website.

The United Kingdom is being overtaken by other countries in the drive for more graduates of higher education, according to an article on the BBC News website. According to the Education at a Glance report released this week by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the UK slipped from the third highest proportion of graduates to 10th.

Although the UK has increased its number of graduates, other countries have moved forward at much more rapid rates. While countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and the Scandinavian nations have three quarters of their young people entering a university, the UK figure, using the OECD's definition, is 52%. For further information, visit the BBC News website.

More widespread university education means more prosperous economies and provides rich rewards in the labor market for those who graduate, according to a new report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Furthermore, the job prospects for the less well qualified do not appear to be damaged by the expansion of higher education and may even be improved, according to the latest edition of the OECD’s annual Education at a Glance.

In all countries with comparative data, university graduates earn more money and find jobs more easily than people who have not had a university education, and these advantages have grown over recent years in many countries. However, fears of a crowding-out effect, whereby more graduates would mean more unemployment at the lower end of the scale, appear not to be justified.

A compendium of international education indicators providing measures of quality, quantity, equity, and efficiency of education systems, Education at a Glance provides a wealth of information about education in OECD-member countries. For further information, visit the OECD website.

Francie Markham’s heart lies somewhere in Zimbabwe, amid African schoolchildren whose hope for education is as fierce as Markham’s resolve to provide it. So Markham, a 55–year–old retired English teacher, has been sorting, stacking and labeling items bound for Hartzell High School, a mission of the United Methodist Church in Old Mutare, Zimbabwe. Soon, Markham and her volunteer army of United Methodist friends, family and colleagues will begin packing a 40-foot-long cargo container with everything from blackboards to books and computers for October shipment. Closest to her heart are 1,200 washable sanitary pads she hopes will make the lives of African girls easier. Read Markham's story at TheState.com

With formal education systems crumbling in much of sub-Saharan Africa, educators are looking more to informal systems of education taught in local languages. “Every child and adult should be able learn in their own language, especially in the face of staggering failure rates from the French education system,” said Sonja Diallo, director of Associates in Research and Education for Development (ARED), a nonprofit group based in Senegal that promotes learning in African languages. About 75% of children fail the seventh grade entrance exam and are forced out of the system, she said, and learning in a foreign language is a big part of the problem. Read about the problem at IRIN News.

India’s President Pratibha Devisingh Patil said women’s literacy and education should be treated as a “priority,” at the International Literacy Day Celebration in the capital on Septermber 8. “India is home to the world’s largest number of illiterates and this is a matter of great concern. India accounts for 20% of the world’s out–of–school children and 35% of adult illiterates. When such a large number of the population remains outside the pale of literacy and education, it makes the task of development more complex and daunting. She added that “Women’s literacy and education has to be made a priority. If we make women literate, they will be self–reliant and the beneficial impact on society will be manifold.” Read the article at Gulfnews.com.

Nadine Gordimer, N. Scott Momaday, Philippe Claudel, Fatou Diome, Gisèle Pineau and Abdourahman Waberi are some of the writers who have joined the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization in its fight against illiteracy. In this issue of The Courier published on the occasion of International Literacy Day, their texts appear side by side with stories on the five laureates of the 2007 UNESCO Literacy Prizes. Read the The UNESCO Courier.

Once again this year, World Teachers' Day will be celebrated on October 5. The overarching theme for the event is "Quality Teachers for Quality Education," and this year's subtheme is "Better Working Conditions for Teachers Mean Better Learning Conditions for Learners." To learn more about World Teachers' Day, visit the TESOL website.

At an occasion to mark United Nations’ International Literacy Day, Dayo Olagunju, executive secretary of the National Commission for Mass-literacy, Adult and Non–Formal Education (NCLAE), said more than 64 million Nigerians are illiterate, about 46% of the population, and over 60% of them are women. The event was held over the weekend and hosted by Family Re-orientation, Education and Empowerment (FREE), at Opukuma, in Bayelsa State. The founder of FREE, Alaire Alaibe, said the strength of the literacy and education organization lies in its ability to work with women leaders in the various communities and states it operates in. FREE operates 28 centers with 5,000 students, the majority of whom are women. The organization was given a UNESCO award recently, the first Nigerian NGO to be so honored in 18 years. Read the article from This Day.

As the new school year begins September 10 in Afghanistan’s insurgency–hit southern provinces, there are concerns that hundreds of schools will remain closed due to insecurity. “At least 300 schools in Helmand, Kandahar, Zabul and Uruzgan provinces will not open because of insecurity,” Siddiq Patman, deputy minister of education, told IRIN in Kabul. In an effort to ensure safe education for all Afghan children, Ministry of Education officials have indirectly tried to persuade Taliban insurgents that attacks on schools are unjustifiable. Torn by decades of war, Afghanistan has one of the highest illiteracy rates in the world, with over 90% of women and 60% of men considered illiterate, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development. Read more at IRIN news.

The United Nations agreed to a set of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000, with a view to tackling global poverty. They include improving living standards in key areas such as education, employment and health care by 2015. Now, halfway to that deadline, the UN has produced a report showing how progress in meeting the goals has varied between regions—although it argues that even in the poorest area, sub–Saharan Africa, some progress has been made. For a quick look at the goals and graphic representations of progress in meeting them, go to the BBC NEWS website.

The fishmonger, who specializes in Mgongo Wazi (fish bones remaining after filleting) at Kisumu’s Koginga Beach in Nyanza Province in Kenya, says she cannot afford to send her five children to school. “Employing adults is too costly. Besides, where do I get the money to buy school uniforms and for bus fare?” she asks. Scenes of children airing mosquito nets, used as fishing nets, in preparation for night fishing expeditions are common along the beaches of Lake Victoria. Many of them are from poverty–stricken homes headed by children or caregivers to bed–ridden parents living with AIDS. Although the government has spent more than US$500 million on free primary education, overcrowding and teacher shortages continue to impede enrollment, retention of students, and quality of education. Read about the situation at allAfrica.com.

The Burkina Faso government will distribute millions of free books to primary school students and launch a pilot project to give no–fee schooling in a push to curb the number of people in this African country growing up without even basic education. “This is the end of the time when reading and maths textbooks are seen as luxury items for parents,” said Odile Bonkoungou, minister of basic education and literacy, on August 27, launching the free books project. Some 10.5 million books for primary school children in reading and math classes have already been ordered, according to Bonkoungou. Of those, 3.5 million will be distributed this academic year. Read more at IRIN News.

A combination of poverty and an education system that has little concern for those who struggle leads many young people in Senegal to Dakar, the nation’s capital, to search for work. According to Unicef, 37% of children between the ages of 5 and 14 are involved in some form of work in this country in West Africa. Although primary and secondary education is compulsory and free, many parents are still reluctant to send their children to school, and dropout rates are high. “It’s about poverty. Families need their children to go to work,” says Falelou Seck, program manager at Plan International in Thiès, that aims to help young Senegalese stay in school. Read more at Guardian Unlimited.

A teacher-to-teacher training project sponsored by Ethiopia Reads to share effective literacy techniques with 10 fledgling libraries in schools in and around Addis Ababa, the capital city, took place this summer. U.S. teachers learned about Ethiopian traditions and together with Ethiopian teacher/librarians, collaborated on ways to connect children with reading, using story-telling, music, acting, and art. Ethiopia Reads is a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that advances the cause of literacy. Two of the leaders of this summer’s expedition to Ethiopia, Jane Kurtz of Hesston, Kansas, and Chris Kurtz of Portland, Oregon, Jane’s brother, have been involved with Ethiopia Reads for many years. Both are IRA members. To see a video about the efforts to encourage literacy and girls’ education in Ethiopia, visit this myspace.com website.

Education in Africa will come under the spotlight as education ministers from African Union countries meet for a five-day conference this week in Johannesburg, South Africa. Issues relating to the Second Decade of Education for Africa will be discussed at the Third Ordinary Session of the Conference of the Ministers of Education, set to begin Monday, August 6, 2007. The initiative was launched by the African Union in 2006 and is aimed at moving the continent closer to attaining the international target of primary education for all by 2015. Read about the conference at allAfrica.com.

 IRA President Linda Gambrell, President-elect Barbara J. Walker, and Executive Director Alan Farstrup describe as “outstanding” the planning and organization for the 22nd World Congress on Reading, which will take place July 28 to 31, 2008 in San Jose, Costa Rica. The three were visiting Costa Rica to assist in the preparation for next year’s World Congress and received press coverage in La Nacion, a leading newspaper in that country. Gambrell explained that given the great cultural complexity of the world “our students need to have high levels of reading and writing” and teachers who are prepared to teach them well. Read an English translation of that article.

Lea acerca del 22° Congreso Mundial de Lectura en este artículo que publicó el periòdico La Naciòn de San José, Costa Rica.

A sub-regional conference in support of literacy will take place in Beijing (China) on July 31 and August 1. The second in a series of regional conferences organized by UNESCO to promote global literacy, the Beijing conference will focus on the situation in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific. Although the total number of people who can read and write in this part of the world is high — 91.7% — a considerable gender gap persists, with women making up 70% of the illiterate population. The situation also varies significantly from one country to another. Details may be found at the UNESCO News Services website.

Rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, the 5th Pan-African Reading for All conference will be held as scheduled, August 6–10, 2007, at the University of Ghana, Legon Campus, Accra, Ghana. The theme of the conference is “Literacy for Human Liberation.”

The registration fee for conferees from non–African countries is US$200.00. Registration for conferees from African countries is US$150.00. All registration fees should be paid on arrival at the conference centre, the Institute of Adult Education on the Legon Campus. A detailed conference program will be available on site.

For more information, including a list of nearby hotels, download the conference information sheet, or contact Professor Kate Adoo-Adeku at kadeku2006@yahoo.com.

The British Department for International Development (DFID) says the world will need US$110 billion to meet the United Nations target of getting all children into primary school by 2015. The department in a report published in its quarterly magazine Development, said the UN has a responsibility to these children, and pointed out that to attain this key Millennium Development Goal (MDG), the rich countries would need to provide US$11 billion in new aid every year for a decade. The magazine said at the current rate of progress, 75 countries—mainly in sub-Saharan Africa—would not achieve the goal. Read the article at allAfrica.com.

Children and teachers at the Okalunga Primary School near Oshigambo in the Oshikoto Region of Namibia are convinced that supernatural powers are at work in the school—girls lose concentration and start nodding uncontrollably. Principal Johannes Nehale told The Namibian that this “nodding” started last month and is affecting many schoolgirls. “It’s a very serious and strange phenomenon...” Nehale said. He said school officials told them to take the children to the Onandjokwe Lutheran Hospital. Several schools in northern Namibia also have reported outbreaks of mass hysteria in which pupils claim to be affected by supernatural powers. Read the article at allAfrica.com.

School was the last thing on Pascal Mwanchoka’s mind when he and his younger brother boarded a bus that would take them hundreds of miles from their mother and her alcohol-fueled rages. Pascal, 13, figured the boys’ schooldays were over for good. “My mother wasn't feeding us; she wasn’t taking us to school,” said Pascal, who came here from the coastal city of Mombasa looking for work but ended up living in the gutters of Nairobi, Kenya. Less than a year later, Pascal and Lenjo, 10, are off the streets and attending a free program in Nairobi for children too poor to afford even a meal of maize and beans. They are among millions of children who struggle against vast obstacles for the luxury of going to school on the poorest continent in the world. Read the story at StarTelegram.com.

The UNESCO IRA Literacy Prize for 2007 goes to the Community Education Administration Centre, Longsheng Ethnic Minority Autonomous County, People’s Republic of China. The Centre was established in a remote, rural, and mountainous area in the northeast of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and serves a large ethnic population that has a high illiteracy rate, especially among women. For more than 10 years, the Centre has conducted, in addition to a literacy program for women, a program for the eradication of poverty through education, and a comprehensive system for rural education. The award, sponsored annually by the International Reading Association, carries a monetary prize of US$20,000, and will be presented by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization in September as part of the celebration of International Literacy Day

Pastoralists across Africa want their children to have access to education that suits their nomadic lifestyles, representatives of pastoral communities said in Isiolo, Kenya. “The issue of the education curriculum is important to understanding pastoralism; imagine taking a lot of time to teach a child in Mandera [northern Kenya] how to plant beans when that child could be taught how to tan leather, given that it is the available resource,” Ali Wario, Kenya’s assistant minister for special programs in the office of the president, said July 9. Wario, who opened the three-day workshop attended by at least 70 participants, said “We must have mobile schools in pastoralist areas if children are to gain from the education system.” Read more at IRIN.

The Ministry of Education in Uganda has been criticized for not including local literature books on its syllabus. According to the National Literacy Awards Committee chairman, Joseph Mugasa, the syllabus is dominated by foreign authors. “Currently, we have only three local authors on the literature syllabus,” Mugasa said at the opening of the Book Forum in Kampala last week. Samuel Andema, chairman of the International Reading Association, observed that Ugandans have a poor reading culture. “The poor reading culture has made us live in ignorance by choice—since we have denied ourselves the opportunity to grow intellectually,” he said. Read the article at allAfrica.com.

“I do not want to go to school,” 12-year-old Maryam told her father in Sadaat in the central Afghan province of Logar, where gunmen recently killed two schoolgirls. “I am afraid,” the traumatized girl begged her parents. “I will not let anyone harm you,” Maryam’s father said. Maryam witnessed the slaying June 12 of two fellow students in front of her school in Sadaat village, a suburb of Pul-i-Alam, the provincial capital of Logar Province, some 30 kilometers west of Kabul. The incident has sparked widespread worries among many parents who fear for the safety of their daughters. According to provincial officials, many female students have been absent from school since the shooting occurred a week ago. Read the complete article at the United Nation news website.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has published an online compendium of its ongoing activities in the field of languages and multilingualism. The compendium was compiled by a task force with the following objectives:
*Promotion of multilingual education, including the mother language
*Safeguarding endangered and indigenous languages
*Promotion of multilingualism and linguistic diversity in literate environments, media, and cyberspace
*Promotion of languages as a means for dialogue and international integration
*Improvement of UNESCO effectiveness through integration of linguistic factors.
Learn more about UNESCO and multilingualism.

An international workshop on Improving the Quality of Mother Tongue/bilingual Literacy Programs and activities is taking place June 18-22, 2007, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, as part of the Asia-Pacific Program of Education for All (APPEAL). Participants from eleven countries in the region will share experiences in implementing pilot mother tongue/bilingual literacy programs and hear from experts from Latin America, Europe and Africa. The meeting was organized by UNESCO Dhaka in collaboration with UNESCO Bangkok and UNESCO Institute of Lifelong Learning. APPEAL's work in language and education aims to raise awareness of the importance of early learning in the mother tongue as well as bilingual/multilingual education. For information, e-mail appeal@unescobkk.org.

United Nations agencies, non-governmental organizatons and media experts will focus on improving advocacy for early childhood education at a UNESCO-hosted workshop June 11-13, 2007, in Paris. The aim is to draw global attention to the critical role of early childhood education in helping children reach their full potential. The workshop will seek to define objectives, audiences, messages and tools for early childhood advocacy and communication. The workshop is co-organized by UNESCO, the Consultative Group on Early Childhood Care and Development, and ADEA Working Group on Early Childhood Development. For information, contact y.kaga@unesco.org.

"We ought to make sure that everyone in our family has a library card and that children are helped on how best to use the library's resources: card catalogs, computer systems, best-seller sections, etc. We must read every day. We need to create habits and set aside time each day for everyone to read either books, magazines, newspapers, letters. You can even begin by reading television listings, then discussing what you will watch together, and why," said the Deputy Minister of Education Becky Ndjoze-Ojo, during a recently held Library Reading Day in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. Read more of her remarks on the value of reading here.

A New York City writer on her way to an international literary festival gets a ride from a cab driver from Bangladesh. And in the time it takes to drive downtown, they define “literature,” discuss Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Edward Albee, and learn just a little bit more about world literature. Read this article from The New York Times.

June 15, the deadline to apply for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) 2007 International Literacy Prizes worth US$20,000 each, is fast approaching. Winners will be recognized on International Literacy Day, September 8, 2007. Only governments and international nonprofits may nominate candidates. The principal prizes in 2007 are the International Reading Association Literacy Award, the two King Sejong Literacy Prizes and the two Confucius Prizes. Health is the current theme of the United Nations Literacy Decade (UNLD) and the prizes will focus on the link between literacy and health care, nutrition, family and reproductive health and health-related community development. Read more here and here.

The ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, says he is giving $10 billion to set up an educational foundation in the Middle East. Sheikh Mohammed said his personal initiative was aimed at creating what he called “a knowledge-based society” in the Middle East. At the moment, he explained, there was high illiteracy in the region—where more than 40% of Arab women cannot read or write. The whole Arab world publishes fewer books than the country of Turkey. Read more about Sheikh Mohammed’s gift in this article from the BBC.

Victor Lyons' mission is to make one million rural Indian women literate in five years. A trained mental health counselor, Lyons has developed what he claims is the fastest literacy program in the world. His Tara Akshar system teaches women to read and write Hindi in less than 30 days, with an alleged 90% success rate. Lyons, 57, of Yorkshire, England, who now lives in Delhi, has created an alphabet using memory techniques. When he arrived in the Punjab five years ago to work in health education, he wondered how to get people to use toilets and clean water so you could lower the child-mortality rates. "But I realised that it wasn't going to work as people couldn't read. You have to start with literacy. A third of the population is illiterate. That's around 400 million illiterates and semi-literates," he said. Read about his program in The Independent online.

L’Association Internationale pour la Lecture conduit de nombreux programmes de développement en éducation dans les pays en développement, notamment en Afrique de l’ouest.

L’Association recrute des volontaires qui souhaitent apporter une assistance technique à ces programmes. Il s’agit pour le volontaire de mettre ses compétences professionnelles, son savoir-faire et ses aptitudes personnelles au service d'une mission internationale de développement en éducation. Les volontaires interviennent comme formateurs, conseillers techniques ou animateurs et travaillent en partenariat avec des éducateurs et cadres nationaux.

Students at the University of Wyoming looking for something to do with their old textbooks this semester have the opportunity to benefit literacy in Africa through a campus-wide book drive. Better World Books, which runs book drives on about 1,000 campuses nationwide, is collecting any textbooks that have been used in the past seven years in a college course. Currently, the organization has raised more than $1.3 million for its literacy partners and donated over 450,000 books. Read more about this program in this article from the Laramie Boomerang.

Last year, finally, everyone in Liupu village in China was able to read and write 1,500 Chinese characters, a census showed. Village leaders threw a big dinner to celebrate, presenting commemorative teacups to the last two adults to make the grade. But ask Zhao Huapu, the earnest principal of Liupu Shezu Girls School, how many people here can actually read and write, and he gives an embarrassed smile. Nearly 30 percent of Liupu's adults are illiterate. Illiteracy is increasing in China, despite a 50-year-old campaign to stamp it out and a declaration by the government in 2000 that it had been nearly eradicated. Read more at The Washington Post website.

Despite Rwanda's stated support of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative of Nicholas Negroponte, currently on leave from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, some questions have been raised about the feasibility of the Rwanda project. The Rwandan government has said it will make sure each pupil in all primary schools owns Negroponte's invention, the XO laptop, within five years. But recent reports indicate XO laptops are not free. Each child will have to part with $100 for the laptop, according to a report in The New Times. Other potential problems include teachers' lack of training in computer technology, the short supply of electricity and some difficulty in operating the hand-cranked computer. Read more about the OLPC program at allAfrica.com.

Targeted attacks on education staff, students and institutions in a number of countries including Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia, Nepal, and Thailand, have risen dramatically in the past three years, according to a new UNESCO study to be released April 27 during Global Action Week (April 23-29). Entitled “Education under attack,” the study covers the bombing, assassination, abduction, illegal detention and torture of students, teaching staff, trade unionists, administrators or officials. It also includes the bombing and burning of educational buildings and the closure of institutions by force. For more, click here.

Dyslexia, that’s d-y-s-l-e-x-i-a. It’s taken a while for the New Zealand Ministry of Education to get its head around the word but affected families and the Dyslexia Foundation are celebrating long-sought recognition of the needs of those identified as having the reading and writing disability. After denying for decades that the condition existed, the ministry said it would put greater emphasis on assisting students who struggled with reading and writing, including those identified as dyslexic. Read more about New Zealand’s efforts to identify such students as early as possible and to provide them with effective interventions based on their specific needs, in this article from The New Zealand Herald.

Enough is enuf. The Simplified Spelling Society (SSS) is celebrating its 99th birthday by launching a new campaign to make it easier to read and write English. With texts and e-mails revolutionizing the way we communicate, SSS secretary John Gledhill says the time is ripe for phonetic reform and spelling simplification. Read more of this article, from the Reuters news agency, on the Scotsman website.

“Education as a Human Right” is the theme of the 2007 Global Action Week (April 23-29). Global Action Week is organized by the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), a UNESCO partner. Educators and other stakeholders are urged to sign up and take part in order to promote Education for All worldwide. “Everyone has the right to education” according to Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. UNESCO promotes the right to education with emphasis on inclusion, lifelong learning and non-discrimination. Learn more at UNESCO’s Education website or the Right to Education website.

Experts will investigate why children drop out of school in South Africa in order to measure the country’s progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Minister of Education Naledi Pandor approved the appointment of a high–level team of experts April 11, who will start their research in a representative sample of schools and seek input from all stakeholders. The team’s investigation will focus on students from Grade 1 to Grade 12. South Africa, in line with the MDG deadline, hopes to achieve the goal of Education for All (EFA) by 2015. Read the article at allAfrica.com.

 Literacy: A Path Out of Extremism? was the topic of the International Reading Association’s Global Perspectives Forum April 9 in Washington, DC. A panel of experts considered the notion that though literacy is key to unlocking the potential of the human intellect in order to enrich lives and build better societies, literacy may not be the panacea for all the world’s problems. Panel members were: Arab League Ambassador Dr. Hussein Hassouna; Dr. Samdani Fakir, a visiting professor at the School for International Training in Vermont; Dr. Frank Dall, a senior researcher at George Washington University, and Dr. Timothy Shanahan, current president of IRA and the director of the Center for Literacy at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

About 50 people participated in the dialogue at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, hosted by the International Reading Association. After the panel discussion, there were three roundtable discussions via telephone conferencing with literacy experts Hellen Inyega in Kenya, Aslam Adeeb in Pakistan, and Bardhyl Musai in Albania. The guest panelists and those participating connected on a variety of levels. An in–depth report on the forum and roundtables will be published by IRA in late spring. Look for it on IRA’s website. For more information about the Global Perspectives series, contact globalperspectives@reading.org.

A link between illiteracy and violence in schools has raised concerns which the Jamaican Ministry of Education and Youth hopes to address through the introduction of more than 100 special educators. According to Education Minister Maxine Henry-Wilson, results from the grade four literacy test and the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) are showing that there is a serious problem with illiteracy in primary schools across the country, and it is correlated to the growing problem of violence in schools. Read more of this article from the Jamaican Gleaner.

The body responsible for developing tutorial materials for the Australian federal government’s $21 million literacy program has dismissed criticism it was repeating the errors of discredited “whole language” methods for teaching reading. The general manager of curriculum projects at the Curriculum Council questioned whether the critics had examined the kit produced for the reading voucher program. Read more about the controversy in this article from The Australian.

Since 2000, the Chinese central government has allocated 8 million yuan ($1.03 million) a year to eradicating illiteracy, with additional funding coming from local governments. There have also been huge efforts to ensure basic education is made available to all. Read more about China’s efforts to eliminate illiteracy, including the awarding of UNESCO literacy prizes, in