(cache) Presentación

D. SHIGERU AOYAGI Chief, Literacy and Non-formal Education Section - UNESCO has participated in our International Congress of the New Literacy Madrid, 6 December 2003
		C u r r i c u l u m C o n f er e n c e I n t e r v i e w

Shigeru Aoyagi (up)

Shigeru Aoyagi is Chief of the Literacy and Non-formal Education
Section of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO), responsible for the promotion of literacy and
non-formal education (NFE) across the world. He is currently a focal
point for the United Nations Literacy Decade (UNLD).

Mr Aoyagi was born in Japan. He received a BA from Tokyo University of
Foreign Studies. He undertook a MSc course majoring in data
communication systems at the Brunel University in UK.

He joined UNESCO in July 2002 after having been Director for seven
years of the Education Division of the Asia/Pacific Cultural Centre for
UNESCO (ACCU), a Japanese semi-governmental organization. He has had
extensive field experience in policy-making, curriculum and learning
materials development, capacity building, monitoring and evaluation in
the field of literacy and NFE in more than 20 countries in Asia and the
Pacific during his service in ACCU.

C O N F E R E N C E (up)

GREETINGS

1. It gives me great pleasure to say a few words on the opening of the International Congress of the New Literacy: a challenge for education in the 21st century. First of all, let me convey our gratitude, on behalf of UNESCO, to the organizer, Don Bosco University Centre for Humanities and Education Science. In my speech, I will touch upon three issues related to the theme of this congress, New Literacy. Firstly, I shall speak about the global trend around literacy, secondly, an evolving notion of literacy and lastly, our future challenge for creating a literate society.

THE GLOBAL TREND

2. The United Nations Literacy Decade (UNLD) was officially launched by Mr Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations and Mr Koichiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO in New York last February. UNESCO was designated as a lead agency to plan, coordinate and implement the Decade at international level until 2012. I am pleased to share the fact with you that the decade has taken off in quite a number of massive ways in different nations and regions of the world. In the Arab States, the regional launch was held in Tunis in July, in Asia it was organized in Bangkok on International Literacy Day, in Latin America it was celebrated in Santiago last September as well, and just three days before the African region officially launched the Decade in Mauritius. These are good signs showing that the entire world reaffirms its commitment to literacy. The decade is also a great opportunity for all people and nations of the world to revisit the complex meaning of literacy and accelerate their efforts to create a literate environment where everyone can enjoy written communication.

3. If we look at reality, however, the present literacy situation is not so satisfactory and its future is far from optimistic. The EFA Monitoring report 2003/2004 published last month entitled, 'Gender and EFA - The Leap to Equality', alerted us that in the world 104 million children were not in school and 862 million adults did not have literacy skills in the year 2000. The report projected that the absolute number of such illiterate people will remain almost same in the year 2015 if the current trend continues.

4. Illiteracy is not a peculiar problem in developing countries but also a dilemma in developed countries. Recent sample surveys in France indicated that 10% of adults aged 26 and over and 6% of young people aged from 17 to 25 are having serious difficulty in reading and writing basic French. Similar rather serious status on basic literacy can be seen in other developed countries as well. As regards functional literacy, which is necessary for people to engage themselves effectively in all kinds of activities of their community, the situation is obviously much more problematic.

EVOLVING NOTION OF LITERACY

5. Over the last decades, the debate around literacy has increasingly moved beyond the simple understanding of literacy as the set of skills of reading, writing and calculating, the so called 3Rs and comes toward a notion of plural or multiple literacies. That "literacy is plural" means that its uses and connections are multiple within a society, within a community and during the life span of an individual. People acquire, learn and use literacy for different purposes in different circumstances, which are shaped by history, culture, religion, language, and socio-economic conditions. It seeks to emphasize that literacy is not uniform but is culturally and linguistically diverse as reflected and manifested in different scripts, different languages, and applied in different social practices, which change with time and place.

6. People living in mountainous areas in northern Thailand, for instance, acquire, learn and use literacy in totally different ways from the people in its capital city, Bangkok. They need to learn basic literacy skills in their own language for the first part of their learning process to better express their culture, history and identity and expand it to the more widely accepted language, like national language. The contents of literacy education should be relevant to their daily lives and beneficial to their life improvement in aspects such as health, nutrition, income-generation, agriculture, and simple vocational skills. On the other hand, people living in big cities like Bangkok are influenced by the modernization and globalization on a much larger scale than those living in rural areas and accordingly the use and acquisition of literacy take place in a more complicated manner.

7. Literacy in the context of a rapidly changing society naturally has different roles or functions. Today, reading, writing and calculating skills is to what extent, in what context, where and when is it to be used. They are quite different from those in the past. Literacy means different things in different places to different people. The plural notion of literacy leads to the 'tailor made' or 'learner-centred' approach of literacy provision which can address various needs of the learners in both developed and developing countries.

8. It should also be noted that the term 'literacy' has long been used in connection with domains other than that of written text. Computer literacy, media literacy, health literacy, eco literacy, emotional literacy and other such combinations are important in today's world but they do not refer primarily to the use of written text in connection with computer, media, health, ecology or emotion. Rather they refer to a basic competence in those domains. In these phrases, 'literacy' is thus a metaphor which is considered as particular life and technical skills in a certain domain and not as an expression of a plural notion of literacy. In its Education Sector position paper to be published early next year, UNESCO will distinguish such use of the term 'literacy' associated with specific skills from the plural notion of literacy which addresses skills and practices genuinely around written text, while giving considerable importance to the development of such skills.

FUTURE CHALLENGE

9. The International Commission on Education for the 21st Century chaired by Jacques Delors proposed in 1996 the four pillars of education, namely, 'learning to know', 'learning to do', 'learning to live together' and 'learning to be'. The Delors report gave impetus to the concept of 'lifelong learning' and the foundational nature of literacy in building it. Domain and level of literacy required to cope with today's ever changing world is also becoming wider and higher. Literacy is evolving. Our biggest challenge is how to keep up with this evolving notion and provide meaningful literacy to different individual learners in effective ways regardless of where he or she lives, developed or developing countries.

10. Over the coming days we shall reflect on these complicated issues of literacy and try to come up with a vision of New Literacy in 21st Century, which can be applicable to different cultures and different levels of development. I wish you well in this very important task, which UNESCO is following with great interest.

11. I will conclude my speech by citing the message transmitted by Mr Matsuura on the occasion of International Literacy Day this year, which states, "Governments, civil society and the international community agree on the seriousness of these challenges and on the need to act - that is not the problem. There is also agreement on the fact that literacy is part of the fundamental human right to education. The problem is to turn this agreement to practical effect through concrete commitments reflected in priorities, budgets, plans and implementation. Let us face this problem squarely as the United Nations Literacy Decade gains momentum - more than 800 million people are waiting".

12. I thank you very much for your attention.

INTERVIEW WITH MR. SHIGERU AOYAGI (up)

1.- What is UNESCO´s mission in the world?

UNESCO was established immediately after World War II, in 1945 with the aim to create the peaceful human mind which should contribute to the peace of the World. The UNESCO is a U.N. affiliated specialist organization which is working for the promotion of education, science, culture, information and communication.

2.- What is the specific mission of your department in UNESCO?

I am Chief of Literacy and Non-Formal education and my section´s mission is working with the member states which count 109 at this moment to promote literacy and non-formal education. I have eight professionals in my section including myself. UNESCO has the educational region beureus in four regions and lots of field offices in each country. We also have the UNESCO Institute of Education in Hamburg, Montrel, Paris, and two big networks where we are now going to promote literacy and non-formal education.

3.- What are the requirements needed for an organization to be "Partner of UNESCO"?

As a pattern we have several categories. One is the NGO´s, for whom the UNESCO has some criteria for them to be an official "Partner of UNESCO". In addition to that, according to the programs, as for example, my program of the literacy Decade we have special kind of criteria and rules. In case of, for example "Education for rural people" which is organised by UNESCO FAO its an open partnership system. So, everybody who wants to join this partnership who is working for this particular field are most welcome. Another aspect is that UNESCO has the associated school system which has some steps to be a partner which can be obtained through the internet. There is also another aspect where UNESCO has the special relationship with particular Universities on particular subjects under UNESCO competences.

4.- What are the commitments of an organization which is "Partner of UNESCO"?

5.- In what situation is literacy at the moment on the world scale?

The situation is not so satisfactory. We still have 862 million adult illiterates, 104 million out - of - school children in the world according to the latest EFA-Monitoring report. The Monitoring-report is also projecting that in the year 2015 which is the goal year for EFA we will still have the same number of illiterate people. This is really a scandalous situation at this moment.

6.- What is the situation like in Europe and where is Spain in relation to the rest of Europe or other countries?

Literacy is not only a problem of developing countries but also of developed countries, including European countries. Recently, an NGO conducted a sample survey about basic literacy in France, and according to the result of the survey surprisingly over 10% of adults cannot read or write French. This is mainly because of migrant people and the drop out of schools. So, this is a very dangerous situation in developed countries as well. I don´t think this is a particular problem in France, but other countries as well. Even in Netherlands, the Royal Family has one focal point: to promote literacy in their countries. They are very serious in the promotion of literacy.
Nowadays, the education system is facing to some kind of hazard and a lot of kids even in developed countries are tempted to - there is a tendency - of dropping out of the process of schooling so this will increase the adult illiteracy in the future.

7.- What is non-formal education and what is the objective of its development?

Actually, non-formal education has a very wide sense. All the learning and education intervention out of school we call it non-formal education. That means adult education, education for out of school children, for adults and education for elder people in the framework of life-long learning. One of the feature or nature of non-formal education is the "learner-centred" approach. Non-formal education does not have set spaces like schools or set time. This is a very flexible approach which can be promoted further in the future. Nowadays UNESCO tries to promote the integration of non-formal education and formal education. We believe that non-formal education has a very big potential in the future to deliver learner- centred and tailor-made education to the old learners.

8.- What main projects is UNESCO undertaking at the moment?

The UNESCO´s top priority in education is "Education for all" so the UNESCO and other International Agencies had a World Program of Education in Dakar, Senegal 2000. In the World Education Program all the members of the countries which participated, which count more than 150, commited, they promised the six goals to be achieved by 2015.These goals are:
1. Promotion of a literate education.
2. Universilization of Primary Education by year 2015.
3. That International Communication countries provide meaningful learning to the young generations.
4. 50% improvement of literacy by the year 2015.
5. Gender equality and gender equity.
6. Promotion of quality of life.

So, these are the six goals of priority in UNESCO´s Education Sector, the EFA´s top priority and especially literacy as a common threat to these six goals.

9.- What pedagogical ideas are suggested by a Congress such as this one?

I have listened to a very interesting lecture today. Mr. Alfredo Tiemblo mentioned the integration of culture and science. He showed a lot of examples of dicotomies. Like science and emotion, knowledge and emotion, skills and knowledge. This kind of integration is quite important. In the second lecture the professor presented the history of literacy and also the concept of how we can generate the concept of knowledge. This kind of approach is quite interesting. The integrated approach tried to show us some kind of human value not only putting the importance on knowledge but also on emotional, human aspect, the human value. This kind of approach is very important especially to the kids at the Primary level.

10.- What objectives should a Congress such as this one achieve?

Another interesting initiative nowadays is the promotion of information literacy which is not just learning reading, writing and calculating, but how we can use and integrate and also locate literary information; how we can cope with this information which is available here and there. In the future, the information literacy can be one of the curricular of the Primary and Secondary levels.

11.- Are you aware of similar projects under way and what are there main ideas?

One of the biggest priority of UNESCO´s project in the field of literacy is how we can set up the Monitoring and evaluing systems. It was a long time wish for the International Community and the countries to come up with some kind of reliable and authentic data collection on the Monitoring system because it is very difficult to measure and monitor literacy programs. Literacy is not only confined reading and writing, but has other issues like gender equality, health programs, so literacy and non-formal education is very complex and difficult to measure. Our next task for the next millennium is how we can come up with authentic and reliable monitoring and evaluing system. We call it "Non-formal education management information system". That is one area. The second area is to promote the community learned-centre because literacy, non-formal education and adult education take place at the community according to their demands. If we cannot address the real needs of the people at the community level, education will fail. The community learned-centre nowadays, especially in the developing countries are quite common. It´s the people´s initiatives, the people´s investment, so the promotion of the community learned-centred is another very important project for UNESCO.

12.- Although it is evident that you are not able to accompany on the three days of the Congress, what impressions will you take with you?

Today I have learned that the founder of this University, Don Bosco, is the founder of the school for professional kids. At the time, in the late 19th century, the big change was happening and today we are also facing a very big change because of internet, because of the information, the revolution. So, once again, revisit the concept of education, what education means. This kind of very fundamental question is very, very important, and I was very happy to see a lot of speakers today trying to reflect on what is the real education. This kind of approach is very important and meaningful, especially for the teachers in the future. Education is not imparting knowledge. Its kind of the human intervention with the kids. So, that kind of very fundamental principle should be again revued in this future rapidly changing world. In that sense I was quite happy and pleased to listen to the various lectures today about the principle and fundamental concept, and the meaning of learning and education.

Thank you very much.