Discussion on UN Literacy Decade to run

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ On July 8, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will hold a discussion on action implementation of the National Programme on Literacy. The National Programme on Literacy was approved by the government of Mongolia in 2004 as Mongolia is the initiator of the 2003-2012 UN Literacy Decade adopted by the 57th session of the UN General Assembly. It is expected that the upcoming discussion will contribute to submitting the next draft resolution on the literacy education to the 37th session of the General Conference of UNESCO to run on November 5-20. The discussion’s co-organizers are the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Education and Science, the Mongolian National Commission for UNESCO and the National Center of Lifetime Education. The UNESCO leads the United Nations Literacy Decade (UNLD) under the slogan of “Literacy as Freedom”. Launched at UN Headquarters in 2003, the Decade aims to increase literacy levels and to empower all people everywhere. In declaring this Decade, the international community recognized that the promotion of literacy is in the interest of all, as part of efforts towards peace, respect and exchange in a globalizing world. The UN Literacy Decade expresses the collective will of the international community to promote a literate environment for all, girls and boys, women and men in both developing and developed countries. The Decade was established for three reasons: On a global scale, one in five adults cannot read nor write. According to the latest estimates, 776 million people are illiterate and two-thirds of these are women. Literacy is a human right. Basic education, within which literacy is the key learning tool, was recognized as a human right over 50 years ago, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This right continues to be violated for a large proportion of humanity. Literacy efforts up to now have proved inadequate, at national and international levels. The Decade is an opportunity to make a sustained collective effort which will go beyond one-shot programmes or campaigns.