IlliteracyintheArabWorld-Unesco.docVIP

Illiteracy in the Arab World By Hassan R. Hammoud Beirut, April 2005 Introduction Literacy is a word that is usually associated with the positive aspects of human civilization, and of social and economic development. However, the word illiteracy has been, and is still used nowadays to characterize poverty and lack of education in various parts of the world. Literacy as we refer to it in this report is a second chance in basic education and a chance not only to improve youth and adult standard of life and upgrade their basic life skills, but also to contribute to the sustainable development of their societies and to become life-long learners. Although adult education in the region has begun to take on other characteristics more prevalent in other parts of the world, which include providing people with the skills and knowledge needed to respond effectively to the growing challenges of new technologies and the information age, it is important to point that the “focus of adult education in the Arab region as a whole has been primarily on literacy, and most of the region still deals with adult education as a literacy issue”. In order to identify the trends and characteristics of literacy and illiteracy in the Arab countries, data was retrieved and compiled from recent UNESCO literacy estimates and projections. These estimates provide basic information on the number and percentage of adults (age 15 years and older) and youth (age 15 to 24 years old) who are literate and illiterate. They indicate the dimensions and patterns of illiteracy within each country according to gender and age groups. The 2000-2004 data on literacy in tables 1 and 2 (see Appendix) is derived from the March 2004 UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) Literacy Assessment which uses directly reported national figures taken between 1995 and 2004, or when not available are based on UIS estimates for 2002. All these figures were rebased to the 2002 UN Population revision (EFA Global Monitoring Repor