Learning is a never-ending journey

Literacy is extremely significant to every human endeavour. Most importantly, if adults cannot read, who will help children as they strive towards success?! As Khalil Gibran, a Lebanese writer and poet, said: “Education sows not seeds in you, but makes your seeds grow.” It is the right of all people to receive quality education that enables their personalities, talents and abilities and to live a full and satisfying life within society.

Though education is always bitter, its fruits are better. This is very common typecast that one needs to permanently keep in mind. Such stereotype reflects the difficulty of pursuing education, acquiring knowledge and going to school for students. Regardless of how difficult or challenging learning is, the rewards are of course very fruitful afterwards. Learning is also sometimes hard to those young and old people who missed the chance of going to school on their days.

Likewise, learning is challenging to those who could not continue with their learning journey at school for certain circumstances. However, a quality education grants people the ability to fight the war on ignorance and poverty. Therefore, the right to receive quality education is the perfect tool to bridge the gap between different cultures and to merge various civilisations. Without having this right, the value of liberty, justice and equality will definitely have no meaning at all.

As a matter of fact, ignorance marks the biggest danger and threat to humankind nowadays. The world is changing in every single second of the day and adapting to the highly advanced technology. Thus, those who are not getting along with the rapidly happening changes worldwide will be left behind. Most likely, they will struggle to cope with the lifestyle that people are used to. They might feel outdated or perhaps in a different world!

It was right what John F. Kennedy said, “a child uneducated is a child lost”! This is mirrored in the world’s dance with the tunes of technology revolution. New discoveries and inventions, for instance, are attacking people’s life everyday. Everyone should be always awake and standby to run with the new advancements coming regularly onboard. That is why every human being has the right to get a proper education.

Thus, out of courtesy to people who missed their chance of learning or completing their study, the world introduced the International Literacy Day. Literacy is identified as a process by which one expands other's knowledge of reading and writing in order to develop their thinking and learning for the purpose of understanding oneself and the world. This process is essential to achieving competence in every educational subject. Actually, literacy is one of the greatest gifts a person could receive.

The International Literacy Day was first announced at the 14th session of Unesco’s General Conference on October 26, 1966. Over the past years, this day has been celebrated annually worldwide in September to remind the public of the importance of literacy as a matter of dignity and human rights. Unesco designated this day to gather international community around a great cause, literacy. The day conveys a message that education shall be directed to developing human personality and strengthening respect for human rights and freedoms.

Today, nearly 800 million people around the world are illiterate in their own languages. Two-thirds of those who can’t read are women. As studies attribute that if the world was 100 people, 14 of them could not read or write. This means in 2018, 1.05 billion people are not literate. Furthermore, 250 million children are failing to acquire basic literacy skill and 56 per cent of children in primary school are not reaching the minimum proficiency in reading and maths.

On the local front, according to the National Centre of Statistics and Information, there are 2,623 literacy centres in different parts of the Sultanate during the academic year 2022/2023. Thanks to government for sparing no effort to make learning in the reach of all.