A/RES/71/166
Literacy for life: shaping future agendas
and mathematics, that an estimated 124 million children and adolescents worldwide
remain out of school, especially in rural areas, and that these challenges are
distributed in an uneven manner across countries and populations,
Recognizing that substantial and efficiently spent investments are needed to
improve the quality of education in order to enable millions of people to acquire
literacy skills for decent work,
Recognizing also that literacy is a foundation for lifelong learning, a building
block for achieving human rights and fundamental freedoms and a driver of
sustainable development and that the United Nations Literacy Decade (2003 –2012)
had a catalytic effect as a global framework for sustained and focused efforts for the
promotion of literacy and literate environments,
Recalling the International Conference on Girls’ and Women’s Literacy and
Education: Foundations for Sustainable Development, held in Dhaka and co -hosted
by the Government of Bangladesh and the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization, in support of the Global Education First Initiative and on
the occasion of International Literacy Day, on 8 September 2014, and taking note
with appreciation of the adoption of the Dhaka Declaration,
Affirming that the realization of the right to education, especially for girls,
contributes to the promotion of human rights, gender equality and the eradication of
poverty, as well as to development,
Recognizing the importance of continuing to implement national programmes
and measures to eliminate illiteracy worldwide as reflected in the Dakar Framework
for Action on Education for All, adopted on 28 April 2000 at the World Education
Forum, 4 and in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and in this regard
recognizing also the important contribution of North-South, South-South and
triangular cooperation through, inter alia, innovative pedagogical methods in
literacy,
Deeply concerned about the persistence of the gender gap in education, which
is reflected by the fact that, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization, nearly two thirds of the world’s non -literate adults are
women,
Concerned that, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization, one third of the children not attending school are children
with disabilities and that the literacy rate among adults with disabilities is as low as
3 per cent in some countries,
Deeply concerned about the impact of disrupted educational services in
humanitarian emergencies on efforts to promote literacy skills, especially for all
children and young people,
1.
Takes note with appreciation of the report of the Director General of the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization entitled “Literacy
for life: shaping future agendas and education for democracy”; 5
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4
See United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Final Report of the World
Education Forum, Dakar, Senegal, 26–28 April 2000 (Paris, 2000).
5
A/71/177.
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