Bronwen Scarffe -Supporting Education- basic education and literacy
UNESCO defines literacy as an …
"ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts much more than this … reading context, body language, tone of voice etc.
It is related to the 4 modes of language, receptive modes – listening and reading expressive modes – speaking and writing plus thinking!
The most crucial aspect of being literate is about individuality ..
- wealth
- having opportunities to learn
- having choices
- being a free thinker – having access to a range of ideas, opinions, thoughts and resources
- being allowed / encouraged to express ourselves
- having opportunities to apply our abilities and knowledge to enhance our lives
Literacy learning is a life long journey
Max with his ipad and e books Max with his picture fiction and non- fiction books
For others it is extremely difficult because of … Some examples of good and bad stressors?
- no access to literate adult models
- poverty and associated reasons eg. child labour
- homelessness, remoteness, unrest, wars
- gender and cultural constraints
- no access to schools, equipment, teachers, resources
- poor health– lack of sleep, hunger, illness
- ineffective school systems/ teaching methodologies let individuals down etc. etc. etc
- Literacy rates for adults and youth continue to rise
- young women aged 15-24 are making the strongest gains, but still lag behind young men (2011, 87% of female youth had basic literacy skills, compared to 92% of males)
- Overall, more than half of the countries with data have youth literacy rates of 95% or higher
Latest data … Despite these gains
- World illiteracy halved between 1970 and 2005
- 774 million adults (15 years and older) still cannot read or write – two-thirds of them (493 million) are women
- 123 million youths are still illiterate of which 76 million are female
- Even though the size of the global illiterate population is shrinking, the female proportion has remained virtually steady at 63% to 64%
Rotary’s Goal is to …
strengthen the capacity of communities to support basic education and literacy so that the sixty-seven million illiterate children worldwide have access to an education an to ensure gender disparity in education and adult illiteracy are addressed.
Rotary is very much concerned with four aspects of the problem
- Identifying issues related to the literacy development of people of all ages, everywhere
- Teaching literacy and numeracy skills and knowledge
- Identifying and improving outcomes for those who have attained literacy skills
- Implementing literacy and other projects that will have a positive impact on communities and the problems of their people
