This year’s international literacy Week celebration, has been launched in Accra under the theme, “Functional literacy-A key to job creation and poverty reduction”. The Day fell on September, 8
At the launch, Mr. Alex Tettey-Enyo, the Minister of Education said, “The Day, which is observed globally, is an occasion worth celebrating because it enables us to ponder over how far we have come in offering alternative opportunities to the non-literate youth and adult to access basic literacy as our Constitution enjoins us to do.”
The Day is also used as a platform for highlighting the achievements and challenges as well as the way forward in ensuring reduction in the illiteracy, he added.
Mr. Alex Tettey-Enyo emphasised on the need to create substantial human and financial resources to implement the National Functional Literacy Programme (NFLP) in the country.
“This is because of the positive impact it is creating in the socio-economic and political development of the country,” he added.
He explained that the targets of the NFLP are located in difficult-to-reach rural areas where all kinds of challenges prevent enrolment of children in formal schools.
Mr. Tettey-Enyo said “The nation stands to benefit from the gainful employment and increase resourcefulness of this critical mass of our population. Promoting the NFLP will assure us the accelerated development and peaceful democratic society we so much aspire”.
The Acting Director of the Non-Formal Education Division of the Ministry of Education, Mr. Charles Darlington Afare said, “Out of 23 million population of the country, almost half is unable to access basic written information that will enable them improve their life, the life of their families and that of their communities at large.”
He appealed to non-governmental organisations and donor communities to collaborate with the government to make the country’s Millennium Development Goal as well as the Education for All Goals a reality.
Mr. Darlington also urged public and private sectors to support the national literacy drive by creating an enabling environment for new-literates of the programme to function and play meaningful roles in the national development process.