The Fight Against Illiteracy goes to the G8
On Thursday, May 26, 2011, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy organised a working session to discuss the fight against illiteracy with the spouses of Heads of State and Government attending the G8 summit in Deauville. The workshop was also attended by two experts: the Director of the National Centre for the Fight against Illiteracy, Marie-Thérèse Geffroy, on the French side and the Director of the Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL), Adama Ouane, on behalf of UNESCO.
Nine days after the national “Sortir de l’illettrisme” meeting at the Georges Pompidou centre, which brought together public and private actors, institutions and associations involved in the fight against illiteracy, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy sought to continue the dialogue with the spouses of Heads of State and Government attending the G8. The phenomenon is no respecter of borders: there are three million illiterate people in France and more than 80 million in Europe, representing 30% of the workforce. Carla Bruni-Sarkozy had addressed the issue at the meeting on 17 May 2011: “The fight against illiteracy is still not considered to be a ‘major cause’. And yet it has all the importance and urgency of one. (…) Being illiterate is seen as a source of shame, which then causes immense pain on top of daily difficulties. (…) It must no longer be seen as shameful to be illiterate. In my view, the truly shameful thing is that the issue is not discussed. Talking is the first step.”
While illiteracy is still widely misunderstood and underestimated, certain initiatives have been implemented and were discussed at the working session.
Among the French initiatives, Marie-Thérèse Geffroy explained the role and mission of the National Centre for the Fight against Illiteracy (ANLCI): to provide its 150 partner institutions with access to resource materials, methods and information in order to encourage concerted and joint action. The relevant ministries, such as Education or Training, along with social partners and major association networks have begun to step up their mobilisation efforts.
At European level, the European Commission has set up a group of independent experts charged with making recommendations to reduce by 15% the number of students with reading difficulties in all Member States by 2020.
Finally, at the international level, Adama Ouane outlined UNESCO‘s position: to support the establishment of sustainable education policies, focusing as much on early childhood education as on adult lifelong learning. For UNESCO, the fight against illiteracy is part of a wider campaign for the basic right to education as stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The spouses of Heads of State and Governments attending the G8 were able to dialogue and shed light on the causes and potential solutions for effectively preventing and fighting against illiteracy.
“While the suffering caused by not knowing how to read and write is individual, the fight must be collective,” concluded Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.
