A ceremony to mark International Literacy Day 2020 was held at the Ministry of Education in Nay Pyi Taw via videoconferencing yesterday morning.

The ceremony was opened with the music video entitled “Sustainable Education for Future”.

Union Minister for Education Dr Myo Thein Gyi, in his capacity as a patron of the organizing committee made an opening speech, saying that the day is the annual celebration of International Literacy Day in Myanmar, which has been celebrated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) since 1967. The COVID-19 is still spreading all over the world including Myanmar during this occasion and there are more challenges regarding with the opportunities for literacy, school educations, lifelong learning as the COVID-19 infection rate is quickly rising.

The reviews of UN educational organizations stated that most of the schools all over the world and other educational facilities were closed and it affected about 1.6 billion of students and about 63 million of teachers from more than 190 countries. So, it is the largest loss of learning opportunities in the history of the world, he said.
Meanwhile, 63 million of primary students from 165 countries also incurred losses in their education. The distance learning programme plays key role for children and youths and the people solve the problems by moving to proper learning activities such as online classes, online lessons, printings and broadcasting on TV and radio, he said.

He added if people cannot quickly respond to the impacts of losing opportunities to learn, it can threaten the future generations and also affect the balanced and sustainable development goals in a decade.

He continued that all the nations and education sectors created new learning models together with new normal lifestyle based on the ICT and media technology.
There should be innovative ways to achieve more opportunities to prioritize the children and youths who lose their rights to learn due to their difficulties following the goal –“Leave No One Behind” and to conduct training for the teachers regarding the changing teaching pedagogies and to provide the needed technologies and infrastructure for continuous learning, he said.

The UN’s report also urges all stakeholders to cooperate to overcome the challenges to achieve more opportunities in learning and not to affect the new generations.
The officials adopted the new teaching methods not to lose learning opportunities like conducting classes in small group learning, online, offline and through TV and radios by following the health guidelines of the Ministry of Health and Sports. The school hours were also changed by dividing the students into groups, so that different student-groups had different schedules, he said.

It also needs to train the teachers to perform in line with the changing pedagogies and to provide the technologies and infrastructure to the areas where most of aids are needed.

In accordance with UNESCO’s “Literacy teaching and learning in the COVID-19 crisis and beyond – The role of educators and changing pedagogies”, education officers need to offer training for literacy educators and to carry out collectively in implementing quality education system, he said.

Then, Rector of Yangon University of Foreign Languages and Secretary General of Myanmar National Commission for UNESCO Dr Kyi Shwin read out the Concept Note for the 2020 International Literacy Day and the documentary video of literacy movement was shown.

The ceremony was concluded with the music video of “Saytana Pan Toh Lan Yar Myay” song.

MNA

(Translated by Khine Thazin Han)

PHOTO: MNA

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