What Does Literacy Mean for UNPO Members?
The right to education is fundamental human right, interconnected with all other human rights. It is essential for the participation in social and cultural life, development, freedom, and empowerment. It is the bedrock of democracy and effective political participation. It breads healthier societies with lower infant mortality rates and higher life expectancies. So why are so many children and adults deprived of their right to education even when States have the obligation to protect, respect and fulfill the right to education? What does literacy actually mean for UNPO Members?
International Day of Literacy, celebrated every year on 8 September, was proclaimed by UNESCO as a day to highlight the importance of literacy for individuals, communities and societies around the world. This year, the focus is on “Literacy and Sustainable Development”, since literacy empowers people to make decisions on questions of economic growth, social development and environmental integration; it “is a basis for lifelong learning and plays a crucial foundational role in the creation of sustainable, prosperous and peaceful societies”. While literacy raises individual self-esteem, it can also create a sense of responsibility across societies.
Yet, education is not accessible to all equally, nor does it adequately complement diverse and multicultural societies. Despite numerous international instruments proclaiming the universality of the right to education, indigenous peoples do not fully enjoy this right.
All too often, poverty, nutrition, and access to social and health services are associated with low literacy levels. Around the world, indigenous children often have fewer educational materials, such as books and computers, to support their learning process. As the gap in literacy between indigenous and non-indigenous communities widens, it further disadvantages indigenous populations when they cannot meet real-life challenges or participation in public life more generally.
Ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural discrimination at schools is a major barrier to equal access to education, and is the cause of poor performance and high drop-out rates for indigenous or minority communities. When indigenous and minority populations underperform, it feeds a vicious cycle of poverty, social fragmentation and underdevelopment, but also marginalization and exclusion from political, economic and social life on a national and international level.
Another obstacle to indigenous and minority education levels and literacy levels is that most educational systems do not incorporate traditional values of indigenous people and accurate information on their way of life. This diminishes their sense of dignity, recognition and consequently, thirst for knowledge.
The question of literacy is an important one for UNPO. Illiteracy is unfortunately widespread across many UNPO Member communities, mirroring social inequality and injustices suffered by countless indigenous and minority groups. UNPO remains concerned about the unequal levels of human development in different sections of societies, and the disadvantaged position in which many UNPO Members communities find themselves, because they lack proper access to education.
For example, China now boasts of a literacy rate of 95%, while the population of East Turkestan is far behind with a level of approximately 40%. Similarly, in Indonesia, literacy is estimated at around 92%, but only 57% of West Papuans are considered literate. Rwanda, a post-conflict success story, is still far behind in literacy levels. Currently only 71% of the whole population is literate, but the Batwa, Rwanda’s third ethnic group, has a worrying literacy rate of 33%. Particularly worrying is the fact that for many indigenous groups, literacy levels remain unknown. When data is unavailable, appropriate strategies are hard to develop and implement to correspond with the needs of the people.
These discrepancies between the literacy levels demonstrate the marginalization of indigenous peoples and minorities (particularly women, who consistently have lower rates of literacy), and the almost insurmountable obstacle to their empowerment.
Literacy is an essential component and determinant of their ability to protect and promote their human and cultural rights, preserve their environment, promote their democratic causes and find creative, non-violent solutions to conflicts, which affect them.
UNPO will continue to stand with our Members in their demand for equal, free, accessible, and quality education free of discrimination and adaptable to the specific needs of various communities UNPO represents as a strategy of promoting their sustainable development and effective participation in the creation of prosperous and peaceful societies.
