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Doha: School drop-out rates are increasing in the Arab world where the number of illiterates is rapidly growing, UN envoys warned here yesterday.
In 2004, there were more than 65 million adult illiterates in the region - 35 per cent of the population, compared to 62 million in 1990, but the demographic increase was only one of the causes, according to representatives of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco).
"School dropout is a serious phenomenon especially in rural and poor areas or among the displaced across the Arab region and it adds to the demographic increase in impacting illiteracy rates. Socio-economic conditions are usually the main reason for it," said Abdulmoneim Osman, director of Unesco's regional office for the Arab States.
Osman was speaking to Gulf News on the sidelines of a regional conference on literacy organised by Unesco in cooperation with the Qatar Foundation.
While the total literacy rate for the Arab region has increased from 50 per cent to 62 per cent between 1990 and 2004 due to larger access to schooling, the rates vary markedly from country to country, from below 60 per cent in Mauritania, Morocco and Yemen to above 90 per cent in Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar, according to Unesco's data.
Peter Smith, assistant director for Education at Unesco, said the challenge of policy makers and educationists across the Arab world is no more only to provide access to education, but also to ensure that children remain at school until they complete their studies and find a literate environment to use what they have learnt.
"The problem is that many children go to school but after a while drop out and forget what they have learnt. In addition, unless we create a literate environment in the poorest and most disadvantaged areas, many literates will turn again into illiterates, because they have no opportunity to use what they have learnt."
Osman also warned that the Arab world has one of the greatest gaps between male and female literacy rates.
"There is an average of 69 literate women for every 100 literate men in the Arab region. But in some countries the percentage is lower than that such as in Mauritania, Egypt, Morocco and Yemen. Poverty and underdevelopment or even the continued existence of nomadic practices, such as in Mauritania, can impact literacy rates especially among women."
Unesco's Director-General Koichiro Matsuura said on Monday that Unesco is committed to help Arab states achieve at least 50 per cent improvement in the Education For All (EFA) agenda by 2015. Egypt, Iraq, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan and Yemen will benefit from special support due to their poor literacy rates.
Matsuura called upon regional and international donors to finance literacy programmes especially in countries which are far from the EFA goals.
Fast facts
Problem mainly affects women
- 781 million adults are illiterate globally. Of them two-thirds are women.
- 77 million children are out of school.
- Some $6 billion is needed annually to provide basic education for all, compared to more than $1 trillion spent on military purposes, $300 billion on publicity and $500 billion on cigarettes, according to Unesco.
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