Tag: literacy

“Literacy is the skill that unlocks the gates of opportunity and success” —Barack Obama

As we celebrate the achievements of those who gained one of the 376 CAPE (formerly A’ Levels) scholarships this year, let us not forget those who continue to live in the ‘dark’ because they are either illiterate or functionally illiterate.

In August, Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) Registrar, Glenroy Cumberbatch, said that about 11,000 pupils across the region who wrote the CSEC Exam (formerly O’ Levels) last May/June got no passes. I wonder how many face literacy challenges?

 “Literacy is the most basic currency of the knowledge economy we’re living in today…in a world where knowledge truly is power and literacy is the skill that unlocks the gates of opportunity and success, we all have a responsibility as parents and librarians, educators and citizens, to instill in our children a love of reading so that we can give them the chance to fulfil their dreams” – US President Barack Obama, “Literacy and Education in a 21st-Century Economy” (2005).

“Lack of education is as serious as lack of food; the illiterate person is a starved spirit” (Pope Paul VI, Populorum Progressio, n.35, 1967).

On Saturday, September 8, the world observed International Literacy Day. It is estimated that there are more than 800 million illiterate persons in the world; of these two-thirds are women.