International Literacy Day - Prerna Rathod

International Literacy Day is celebrated every year on 8th September. Its main aim of this day is to highlight the importance of literacy to all individuals, communities and societies. Several initiatives are taken by the Government and people from educational background to highlight the improvement in world literacy rates and reflect on the remaining literacy challenges.

International Literacy Day was declared by UNESCO on 26th 1966 at 14th session of it’s General

conference. The first time it was celebrated in 1967. The scale of literacy is very low in the world. So this day was started keeping in mind the importance of literacy which is a matter of dignity and human rights. The basic aim is that each individual acquires the basic skill of reading and writing. If people are educated then, they can live a proper life, earn a livelihood for living, contribute to society, country and world in promoting peace, eradicating poverty, removing gender inequality, and many more. Every year different themes are used to celebrate this day. Some previous year’s themes were “The Power of Women’s Literacy”, “Literacy and Health” and “Literacy for Peace”, “Literacy and Multilingualism”.

This day is celebrated both at national and local levels at various schools, NGOs and community centres. Events like great authors are invited to speak; competitions are organized for children so they can earn scholarships as a reward and get a chance to attend school.

This year’s theme is “Literacy Teaching and Learning in the Covid-19 Crisis and Beyond”. It lays emphasis on the role of educators and changing pedagogies. The main focus is on youths and adults. There were many loopholes in our education system and with Covid-19 crisis education was affected a lot. Due to these programmes were developed which could be used during pandemic time and beyond.

If the literacy rate increases not only the individual’s future is brightened but also the nation’s development and growth increases.

Prerna Rathod
The Fabindia School
prd@fabindiaschools.in