Columnists
We need all hands on deck to stamp out illiteracy for prosperous Kenya
Friday September 08 2023
Pupils and their teacher in class at St Bakhita Primary School. FILE PHOTO | NMG
Kenya joins the world in celebrating the 57th International Literacy Day (ILD) on Friday looking back at great progress made in increasing the number of Kenyans who can read and write over the years.
The latest World Bank data places the adult literacy rate in Kenya by 2021 for people aged 15 years and above at 82.62 percent.
This means that about 17.38 percent of the Kenyan population in the above-age cohort is still illiterate, providing pointers to where stakeholder efforts should focus as we seek to stamp out illiteracy.
Literary empowers people and improves their self-esteem, creativity, and critical thinking. It enables them to acquire the knowledge, skills, attitude, and values required to thrive in our rapidly changing society and economy.
Besides, literacy contributes not only to generating personal benefits, such as better well-being and economic conditions, but also to social, economic, political cultural, and environmental aspects.
The literacy programmes the country has put in place for children, youth and adults — who missed out or lost the skills for whatever reasons — help enhance democratic values, peaceful coexistence, and community solidarity.
Embedded in adult and continuing education programmes is the knowledge, skills and attitudes critical to creating and maintaining a harmonious existence.
It has the potential to help communities especially the conflict-prone communities regions of Kenya due to the scramble for scarce resources, and cattle rustling among others has enabled them to embrace peaceful co-existence.
The State provides adult basic literacy, post-literacy, continuing education and empowerment programmes. These programmes provide functional knowledge and skills on issues related to the daily activities of learners.
It also provides primary and secondary continuing education programmes to accord an opportunity to those who, for whatever reasons, dropped out of school before completing the basic education to continue and sit for their KCPE or KCSE as the case may be.
Regrettably, however, at least one out of seven youth and adults aged 15 years and above worldwide, equivalent to 773 million, still lack basic literacy and numeracy skills.
This calls for concerted efforts to provide education to these pockets of illiterate population.
Dr Kipsang is the Principal Secretary for Basic Education.
