Message-ID: <19990118005617.AAD23694@LOCALNAME> Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1999 20:55:52 -0400 From: Kerry Miller <mailto:kerryo@NS.SYMPATICO.CA> Subject: Unicef: one billion illiterates (fwd To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------/** twn.features: 303.0 **/ ** Topic: New millenium will see one billion illiterates ** ** Written 8:56 AM Jan 14, 1999 by mailto:twnet@po.jaring.my in cdp:twn.features **
NEW MILLENNIUM WILL SEE ONE BILLION ILLITERATES By Thalif Deen January 1999
According to the United Nations Children's Fund, the world will enter the new millennium with an estimated one billion illiterate people, about 130 million of them children in the developing countries. To ahieve education for all children, UNICEF says, the world would need to spend an additional $7 billion per year over the next 10 years - which is less than the amount spent annually on cosmetics in the US or on ice-cream in Europe, and less than a tenth of the world's annual military spending.
------------ United Nations: Nearly a billion people - a sixth of humanity - will enter the new millennium unable to read a book or even sign their names, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on 8 December 1998.
In its annual survey, 'State of the World's Children 1999', released here, UNICEF said the growing number of functional illiterates - two-thirds of them women - in the world will not only lack the basic knowledge to operate a computer but also be unable to understand a simple application form.
'And they will live, as now, in more desperate poverty and poorer health than most of those who can,' it warned.
Tracing the origins of illiteracy, UNICEF said that more than 130 million children of primary school age in developing countries, including 73 million girls, were growing up without access to a basic education.
'The world can no longer afford such an enormous waste of human potential,' UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said. She pointed out that the consequences of illiteracy are profound and even potentially life-threatening.
They flow from the denial of a fundamental human right: the right to education, proclaimed in agreements ranging from the 50-year-old Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, the world's most universally embraced human rights instrument.
Paradoxically, said UNICEF, the right to education has been a topic of discussion in numerous international meetings over the past 50 years, and in every major UN summit and conference of the past decade. Yet, despite these ringing affirmations over the past half-century, an estimated 855 million people will be functionally illiterate on the eve of the millennium.
Of the 130 million children growing up without access to a basic education, girls represent nearly two of every three in the developing world.
UNICEF said there was an unmistakable correlation between education and mortality rates, especially child mortality. A 10% increase in girls' primary enrolment can be expected to decrease infant mortality by 4.1 deaths per 1,000, and a similar rise in girls' secondary enrolment could slash mortality among infants by another 5.6 deaths per 1,000.
In concrete terms, this would mean, for example in Pakistan, an extra year of schooling for an additional 1,000 girls would ultimately prevent roughly 60 infant deaths.
UNICEF has also pointed out that the denial of the right to education hurts people's capacity to work productively, to sustain and protect themselves and their families. Those who understand the importance of health, sanitation and nutrition help to lower the incidence of preventable illness and death in their families while increasing their potential for economic productivity and financial and social stability.
'On a society-wide scale, the denial of education harms the cause of democracy and social progress - and, by extension, international peace and security,' UNICEF argued. Illiteracy begins as a sad fact of life for millions of children who are, more often than not, girls.
The reasons are numerous, UNICEF said. For girls, their gender alone may keep them home, locked in subsistence chores - or so isolated in the classroom that they become discouraged and drop out.
For tens of millions of children, education is beyond reach also because they are full-time workers, many toiling in hazardous and exploitative forms of child labour.
For others, there may simply be no school for them to attend, or if there is, it fails to ensure their right to education. There may be too few qualified teachers, or a child's family may not be able to afford the fees. The school may be too far from home. Or it may lack books and supplies.
Pointing out the economics of the problem, UNICEF said that the world's poorest nations carry a $2.2-trillion external debt, making it extremely difficult for them to invest in education.Of these, the worst hit are the world's 48 least developed countries (LDCs), the poorest of the poor, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa.
UNICEF said that to achieve education for all children, the world would need to spend an additional $7 billion per year over the next 10 years. 'This is less than is annually spent on cosmetics in the United States or on ice-cream in Europe. It is less than a tenth of the world's annual military spending,' it added.
The crisis of basic education, UNICEF said, comes at a time when technology has triggered a quantum leap in the accessibility of information, making ideas and knowledge available to more people than ever before.
'The tragedy is that these same technological advances have further deepened the gulf between rich and poor - between those sufficiently affluent and educated to benefit from the new learning technology, and those disqualified by poverty and illiteracy,' UNICEF said. - Third World Network Features/IPS
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About the writer: Thalif Deen is a correspondent for Inter Press Service, with whose permission the above article is reprinted.
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