Ministry gets international prize for promoting adult literacy

The Adult Education Department of Eritrea’s education ministry has been awarded a US $15,000 prize by the International Reading Association in recognition of its work in promoting adult literacy.

The prize, which is sponsored by UNESCO, acknowledges the ministry’s achievements over the past decade – particularly during the recent border war with Ethiopia. The Reading Association particularly praised the ministry’s work with demobilised soldiers and with women.

Projects aimed at promoting literacy within different ethnic groups, as well as the establishment of reading rooms and public libraries for self-learning, were also singled out for praise.

Gebrazghi Demam, the ministry’s director of adult education, told IRIN he was delighted and encouraged by the award.

“I am very happy that our efforts with literacy have been recognised,” he said. “We have been committed to literacy issues, and bringing the illiteracy figures down to acceptable levels, if not eliminating them, for a very long time."

“It is really encouraging to receive the award and it will push us to achieve more,” Gebrazghi added.

He said he had not yet decided how the prize money would be spent, but planned to celebrate the forthcoming International Literacy Day, on 8 September, in style. “We would like to use that day to make more people aware of the importance of literacy. We would like to reach as many people as possible,” he said.

Improving literacy rates has long been a high priority for the Eritrean government. It is currently estimated that about 70 percent of the country’s mainly rural population is illiterate.

But now new schools and libraries are being built in most major towns around the country, and many adults are taking part in basic literacy and numeracy courses run by the ministry of education, as well as by various groups and regional administrations.

The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) sponsors one such programme. It provides food for women who attend lessons in reading, writing and basic arithmetic, run by the ministry and the National Eritrean Union for Women.