Secretary of Education Richard Riley, UNESCO Director-General Federico Mayor and acclaimed literacy scholar Paulo Freire were joined by representatives from more than 45 nations for the 1996 World Conference on Literacy. The meeting, hosted by the International Literacy Institute (ILI) of the University of Pennsylvania, was recently held at the Wyndham Franklin Plaza Hotel.

The conference, "Improving Literacy, Changing Lives: Innovations and Interconnections for Development," focused on issues related to the improvement of global literacy efforts amid dramatic political, economic and cultural changes. Participants explored new ways of coordinating literacy efforts to support economic development. The three-day meeting included 225 presentations on topics such as professional development, planning and policy development, curriculum development, intergenerational programs, research and development networks, and distance education.

At a time when information technology is expanding rapidly, carrying promises of economic prosperity for even the poorest nations, the gap between those who can use the new technology and those who cannot because of poor literacy skills continues to widen at alarming rates, said Wadi Haddad, deputy secretary of the World Bank, during his remarks opening the sessions.

Haddad and other world experts on literacy predicted dire consequences if the world fails to address adequately the problems of illiteracy in both developing and industrialized nations.

Haddad said that the goal of the meeting was to "harness the frustration" of policy-makers and educators seeking to bring recent advances in literacy and adult education to those most in need. He said that even though progress has been made, much work still needed to be done in a cooperative manner through world organizations, such as UNESCO, to make resources available.

Secretary of Education Riley said that the improvement of literacy in the United States is a "vital and urgent task," and noted that there are 7 million adults who cannot read and 26 million adults who have not mastered the basic literacy skills necessary to function in today's economy. "Technology is useless without literacy," he said.

UNESCO Director-General Mayor brought the focus of literacy back to the individual with his comments on "multilingualism" and mother-tongue education. Mayor drew his remarks from his own experiences growing up as a member of a linguistic minority in Spain.

Paulo Freire--widely known as the literacy guru of this half-century, and author of "Pedagogy of the Oppressed"--stressed the importance of involving younger generations as the driving force of the future. "It is not a question of teaching," he added. "Literacy is a political question."

The conference was the first major international meeting dealing with literacy to be held since the International Symposium for Literacy took place in Iran 20 years ago. The 1996 conference drew participants from countries as diverse as Angola, Nepal, Slovenia, Mauritius, Brazil and Switzerland.

The meeting also featured an international satellite broadcast co-sponsored by PBS, WHYY and the U.S. Department of Education that involved literacy educators and policy-makers from across the country and around the world examining global perspectives on literacy progress and problems. The broadcast was downlinked to nearly 400 sites worldwide with an estimated viewership of 30,000 to 40,000 people.

"Literacy is now recognized as a major international issue and a crucial element for the economic viability of both the developing and industrialized nations," said Daniel Wagner, professor of education and director of Penn's National Center on Adult Literacy (NCAL) and ILI. "This conference links on a global scale the best research and policy efforts to address the critical need for improving the standards in the U.S. and around the world."

Wagner told the audience that literacy work worldwide needed to shift emphasis. He noted that 20 years ago, most educators and policy-makers typically divided the world into literates and illiterates--the "haves and the have nots" of education. This, according to Wagner, caused much of the political support for literacy to be measured as a quantity--how many literates were achieved during a specific time period. Yet, despite improved access to basic education in virtually all countries, low and inadequate literacy levels even in industrialized countries continue to be a major social and economic problem.

Wagner said that improving the quality of literacy skills needs to be the focus for the year 2000 and beyond. Quality, he said, involves improving schools for children, improving nonformal education programs and improving the way literacy work is carried out.

According to UNESCO, nearly 1 billion people are illiterate, most of them in developing nations. In industrialized nations, millions of people do not possess sufficient literacy skills to function effectively in work, home and communities.

Return to Compass Features for April 23, 1996