From rhetoric to reality - International Literacy Year 1990 - One Billion Illiterates - editorial

UNESCO Courier, July, 1990 by John Ryan

WHAT can an International Year achieve? Does it give an impetus to action or provide an excuse for inaction, bestowing a conscience-calming benediction upon a global problem which perplexes or overwhelms us? The answer probably depends not so much upon the theme of the Year, per se, as upon what we are prepared to do with it. The International Year of Disabled Persons, which was observed in 1981, for example, was instrumental in transforming attitudes and redesigning facilities. Kerbs which had obstructed wheel-chairs disappeared, traffic signals no longer merely flashed, but also buzzed, and increasingly ramps and elevators were installed to give the disabled access to public places. Many of these changes may have eventually occurred in any case, but the Year gave fresh impetus to efforts by and on behalf of the disabled, and armed those who wanted to act with a reason and occasion for doing so.

The Year also mobilized the disabled into effective interest groups, making them keenly aware of their numbers and needs. It would be an exaggeration to say that history was transformed or the future redesigned by the Year, but, for the disabled, history was moved into the fast lane. The Year succeeded-or succeeded in many places-because it was wanted and needed. The disabled and their advocates were ready with practical proposals for converting public awareness and support into tangible results. Alas, not all International Years are equally successful. Some remain almost clandestine events, entered and exited without perturbation or visible progress. Only a few cognoscenti seem to know much about them; others may be vaguely aware; and most, if asked, would venture that it was the year of the snake or the pig or whatever.

How will International Literacy Year (ILY) be remembered? As an event that helped to push the vision of education for all from rhetoric towards reality, as 365 days that made a difference or at least a beginning, or as a non-event hardly worth remembering at all? It is evidently too early to judge. What is certain is that millions of women and men around the world are engaged in activities related to ILY, teaching and learning in schools and literacy groups, in libraries and learning centres, and working to promote education and literacy through governmental and non-governmental organizations, the media and in countless other places and ways. There are national committees or structures for ILY in 109 Unesco member states; hundreds of nongovernmental organizations have established special committees or programmes for the Year; United Nations organizations are involved in a variety of ways, and the mass media-print and electronic alike-are increasing their coverage of and involvement in literacy during 1990. Thus, much is happening. How much and with what effect we will only know when an assessment is made in 1991.

There can be no doubt that the timing of the Year is auspicious. I he easing of East-West tensions the pending end of the "cold war" were neither envisaged nor imagined in the autumn of 1985 when the General Conference of Unesco appealed to the General Assembly of the United Nations to proclaim an International Literacy Year, nor even in December 1987 when the General Assembly acted upon that request, proclaiming 1990 as ILY. These profound changes in the climate of international relations give special meaning and importance to ILY, for there is now reason to hope that priorities will change and attention and resources dedicated to the preparation for war will be reallocated to the pursuits of peace: to meeting the basic and urgent needs of humanity.

Education, a victim of economic crisis

ILY arrives not only at a moment of opportunity, but also at a time of urgent need. The situation regarding education is difficult, even dramatic, in many developing countries, especially in the poorest among them. The last decade has been a period of economic crisis and social tensions. Indeed, contrary to all logic and expectations, during the last years of the decade, the net capital flow has been from the poor countries to the rich ones, from the "have-nots" to the "haves" of the world. Education has been especially hard hit. Many countries have seen the goal of universal primary education, a prerequisite for creating a literate society, slip further from their grasp.

In this International Literacy Year, there are an estimated 963 million illiterate adults (fifteen years+) and over 125 million children between the ages of six and eleven years, who are not enrolled in school and are hence at risk of becoming adult illiterates of the twenty-first century. The situation regarding the education of women is especially serious: one woman in three is illiterate, as compared to one man in five. Action is imperative to check and reverse the decline of education, the stagnation in growth and the erosion quality. Even in the industrialized countries, situation is disquieting. In many such societies, one fifth or more of the adult population is unable to cope adequately with the literacy demands of increasingly complex living and working environments. It has been calculated that the economic cost of this situation is enormous. The human suffering it entails is inestimable. Conscience and common sense alike demand that we act vigorously to confront this global problem, which is so wasteful of human potential, so unjust and so unnecessary.