International Literacy Day
International Literacy Day is celebrated every year on 8 September. This year it is 55th Literacy Day. Literacy Day is created to promote education all over the world. Literacy Day signifies that every person in the world should be educated and this is a necessary step to move ahead in the path of progress. UNESCO declared 8 September as International Literacy Day in the year 1966. This day is celebrated to mark the importance of literacy and to remind that literacy is a right.
Meaning of literacy
Literacy means to be literate i.e. to be endowed with the ability to read and write. Different countries have different standards of literacy. According to the National Literacy Mission in India, if a person acquires the ability to write and read his name, then he is considered literate.
Why is Literacy Day celebrated?
This day is celebrated to make people aware about the need to be educated and to know their rights for social and human development. Literacy helps people to lead a better life and also helps in eradicating poverty, controlling population, reducing child mortality, etc. This day is celebrated to encourage people for better education. UNESCO organizes many programs in schools, colleges and villages to make people aware on this day.
UNESCO first decided to celebrate International Literacy Day on 7 November 1965. After which a day was fixed for this and since then World Literacy Day is celebrated every year on 8th September. From the very next year of this decision of UNESCO, that is, from 1966, for the first time, Literacy Day was started.
Theme of the ‘International Literacy Day 2021’
This year’s theme for World Literacy Day is “Literacy for Human Centered Recovery: Bridging the Digital Divide”.
The theme of International Literacy Day 2021 is set to create more awareness among people about digital literacy. The corona pandemic has made a huge impact on the education of children, youth and adults and has created many difficulties, it has increased the division of knowledge among citizens.
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