People marching towards building the Union based on democratic and federal systems must be literate and complete school education.
A coordination meeting on the literacy campaign to be launched for the people from rural regions and ethnic areas took place at the State Administration Council Chairman Office yesterday, with an address by SAC Vice-Chairman Deputy Prime Minister Vice-Senior General Soe Win.
In retrospect, the Vice-Senior General who is also in the capacity of Chairman of the Education, Health and Human Resources Development Committee said that, although the literacy rate was high in Myanmar’s monarchical era due to the encouragement of Myanmar’s monarchs and teaching of Buddhist monks, such a rate declined to 35 per cent in the colonial eras of British and Japan.
He continued that the 2019 interim population indicates some 4.1 million illiterates above 15 years old across the nation. The number of women illiterates in regions and states is larger than the number of men illiterates.
The Vice-Senior General underlined that only when the people are literate will they have adequate knowledge to analyze the persuasion of others. The literates will have a keenness to read literature. If so, they will have the knowledge to adjust all things for themselves and their society. The terrorist acts happening in some townships and border areas of the country depend on consequences of 4.1 million illiterates above 15 years old people according to the 2019 interim population, he added.
As such, he recounted that at the Union government meeting 4/2023 held on 30 August 2023, the Prime Minister gave guidance that as literacy and school education of the ethnic people including rural residents were weak, the committee was instructed to implement the literacy campaign for them.
The Vice-Senior General highlighted that at a time when the State and the people are marching to build the Union based on democratic and federal systems, those who will implement the system of the country and follow it need to become literate and complete school education. And, as ethnic people need to have skills in Myanmar language as an official language, the literacy campaign was staged, he added.
Union Minister for Education Dr Nyunt Pe reported on plans to implement the basic literacy campaign by the ministry, provision of teaching aid and assistance for supervisors whereas the dignitaries discussed the participation of relevant ministries in the literacy campaign.
UNESCO also recognized the mass literacy campaign of Myanmar, awarding the Mohammad Reza Pahlavi Prize to Myanmar on 8 September 1971 when International Literacy Day was marked.
Moreover, as Sayagyi U Thaung Tun submitted the Burmese Way to Literacy at the literacy conference held in West Berlin, Germany in 1984 and disseminated the information on the mass movement of Myanmar’s literacy campaign without budget to the world, elders’ text for international literacy campaign and publications, the UNESCO awarded Noma literacy prize to Myanmar as a wonderful victory of Myanmar. — MNA/TTA
