An International Literacy Day message.

Happy International Literacy Day 2020 to all the literacy advocates, champions, educators and policy makers. Literacy is the core of basic education for all and essential for promoting sustainable development, peace and democracy, achieving gender equality and equity, curbing population growth and poverty.

As the world continues to battle with the COVID-19 global pandemic and health crisis, it is still important for us to prioritize learning and focusing on producing self-reliant and competent learner who will provide solutions to global challenges. The corona virus has disrupted the education of many school-going children in most countries, especially the developing ones such as Uganda, where high levels of literacy levels still need to be achieved.

As the government, under the Ministry of Education and Sports works to establish means to ensure continued learning, the current situation should serve as inspiration for educators and teachers to embrace technology in form of online learning platforms to help make up for the time lost while schools and other learning facilities have been under lock-down. This approach will not only reduce the incidences of automatic promotion to next classes and repetition but also instigate a sense of responsibility and learning among students.

Ms. Angela Ameso Anyolo, co-founder of Kitabu-Buk Project and Commercial Officer at National Water and Sewerage Corporation.

The theme for this year’s International Literacy Day was “Literacy teaching and learning in the COVID-19 crisis and beyond.”