As Nigeria joins the rest of the world to mark the 2023 International Literacy Day,(ILD) the Minister of Education, Prof Tahir Mamman, has said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu does not want any single Nigerian to remain as an illiterate.
Prof Mamman who stated this in an event to mark ILD on Friday in Abuja with the theme, “Promoting literacy for a world in transition: Building the foundation for sustainable and peaceful societies” said challenges of adult illiteracy and Out of school children are among the top eight priorities they have drawn and put through at the last executive meeting.
International Literacy Day is marked globally September 8 every year.
He described the issue of out of school as a disease they will not allow to continue.
“We have the directives from Mr. President and we have our own personal resolve to address this matter and in the weeks ahead we will be engaging the public on the measures and platforms to address them. We will not allow any obstacle in our way in achieving the goal,” he said.
On issue of conflicting data, the Minister said 10.5 million is the latest and that they have their agencies working on the data and also to have data from national population commission to give a seal of analytic of the data they have.
He noted the theme of the day is a most fitting conjecture that accurately describes the world today; effectively exploring the patterns of transformation and adjustment that has characterized education globally as a result of its ever- increasing scope and paradigm.
“Specifically, it awakens our consciousness to the need to continually make required adjustments in our approach to literacy delivery with a view to meeting the current global trends,” he said.
“We would continue to rethink the fundamental importance of functional literacy as a necessary panacea that will help build resilience and ensure quality, equitable and inclusive education for all,” he added.
He however, urged all stakeholders to make a difference by complementing government’s efforts in the fight against illiteracy in their various schedules, homes, families and immediate communities.
The Executive Secretary of National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-formal Education (NMEC) Prof Simon Akpama, said this year’s ILD provides another ample vista for them to sincerely rethink the fundamental role literacy plays in promoting peace, societal stability, social and economic reconstruction, development.
“We are conscious of the immutable fact that literacy is a sustainable fundamental human right. Youth and adults who are deprived of this right consistently constitute conduits for promoting distrust, mutual suspicion, intolerance, violence, and divergent conflicts which threaten national integration and overall development,” he said.
To mark the day, he said they must rejuvenate and redouble their commitment to improve their support for the promotion of youth and adult literacy through the Adult and Non-Formal Education sub-sector.
“Given the realities of our situation, it is impossible to dispute the assertion that an unpleasant symbiotic synergy exists between high illiteracy rate among youth and adults and the unprecedented increase in the eruption of violence and divergent conflicts, which tend to threaten our mutual co- existence and nation building,” he said.
He however, called for a sustained and improved funding support for youth and adult literacy programmes, saying, it will inevitably improve literacy levels and enhance the desired attainment of peaceful communities for sustained national development of the country.
He said NMEC, is committed to judiciously utilize all available resources to ensure that it fulfill sacred mandate of reducing illiteracy among youth and adults to the barest minimum in Nigeria.
Director General of UNESCO Ms Audrey Azoulay said in the space of 40 years, significant progress has been made as 3.6 billion people have learned to read and raising the global literacy rate from 68 per cent in 1979 to 86 per cent in 2020.
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