The UAE celebrated the
International Literacy Day 2014 with the rest of the world, on Monday, 8th
of September, under the theme "Literacy and Sustainable Development”. The
United Nations aims, through this year’s chosen theme, to emphasize the role of
literacy as a key element needed to promote sustainable development, and enable
individuals to make the right decisions in the areas of economic growth, social
development, and environmental integration.
The UAE is considered
one of the Arab countries with the lowest illiteracy rates, as the last
official statistics released by the Ministry of Education and stakeholders
showed lower rates of illiteracy in the State to less than 1%, which was not
possible to be reached without the utmost attention to education and the
patronage of His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and his brother,
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President, Prime
Minister, and Ruler of Dubai, and their Highnesses the Supreme Council Members
and Rulers of the Emirates.
In order to achieve
the objectives of the International Literacy Day, many educational and
humanitarian institutions in the UAE worked hard to reduce the percentage of illiteracy
in the State, through the development of the skills of literacy, and provision
of all the necessary conditions at the various levels to be able to minimize
and reduce illiteracy in the UAE, Arab world, and the entire world. "Dubai
Cares" is one of these active institutions which had access to more than
10 million children in 35 developing countries, and works to rehabilitate more
than 1500 classrooms, building more than 3400 health facilities inside schools,
provide healthy meals for more than 504,000 children every day in schools,
train more than 38,000 teachers, prevent more than 2.7 million children from
getting intestinal worms, distribute more than 2.1 million books in local
languages, and establish more than 6750 councils for the parents and teachers
.
Literacy is a tool
to improve the conditions of individuals’ health, increase their incomes, and
strengthen their relationships with the world around them. It also contributes
to the reduction of poverty and enables individuals to get jobs and receive higher
salaries, and it is considered one of the most effective means to improve the
health of mothers and children, curb population growth, establish equality
between the two genders, and achieve peace and democracy.
The Islamic
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) clarified, in its call
for the Muslim world, that the rampant illiteracy in the countries of the
Islamic world is not only a social epidemic, but it is also considered a
serious problem that hinders the development and greatly weakens the community’s
capabilities to promote and build the strong and growing economy, and achieve
the millennium development goals.
10/09/2014