PARIS, Jan. 15 (UPI) -- With approximately one in five adults worldwide who can't read or write, the U.N. educational agency is increasing efforts to train literacy teachers.
"An estimated 18 million more teachers must be trained worldwide by 2015 if we are to achieve universal primary education," said Koichiro Matsuura, director general of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, in Paris Monday.
The "Teacher Training and Literacy" roundtable at UNESCO focused on the shortage of literacy teachers who work outside schools.
"An additional 77 million children do not go to school, and have no chance of acquiring basic literacy skills," Matsuura said. "This will seriously impede efforts to reach the 'Education for All' goal of dramatically improving adult literacy levels."
U.S. first lady Laura Bush, honorary ambassador for the U.N. Literacy Decade, attended the meeting along with teachers from the developing world and UNESCO delegation members.
"Ending illiteracy is a challenge for every country," she said. "Yet investing in literacy and education helps governments to meet their fundamental obligations: improving opportunities for children and families, strengthening their economies, and keeping their citizens in good health."
Monday's meeting followed the first ever White House Conference on Global Literacy held in Washington last September. There will be five other regional literacy conferences, starting in Qatar in March 2007. The Africa regional conference will be held in Mali in September. Three other meetings are planned for Latin America, Europe and Central Asia.
In the context of the U.N. Literacy Decade, UNESCO will start a program called Literacy Initiative for the Empowerment: 2005-2015 to improve learning structures for illiterate adults in 34 countries. The initiative will target countries where the literacy rate is under 50 percent or where there are more than 10 million adults who cannot read or write.
