According to the 2014 Nationwide Census and the appendix report, the presence of an estimated 3.5 million ill-literate population aged above 15, who have never attended the schools, is an important challenge to the country’s development, said Union Minister for Education Dr. Myo Thein Gyi, at the ceremony to mark International Literacy Day in Nay Pyi Taw on September 8.
“For the improvement of development indexes, literacy work plays a crucial role in the country’s development. During the current academic year, 20,199 ethnic language teachers and 11,718 teaching assistants trained 766,731 students in 12,488 schools nationwide, in cooperation with the region/state governments and officials from the Ethnic Affairs Ministry,” he added.
This year’s motto is “Literacy and Multilingualism.”
The National Education Strategic Plan includes the implementation of ethnic language teaching in 2016-2021.
The ministry of education is working to achieve the goal: “By 2030, ensure that all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both men and women, achieve literacy and numeracy”, which is one of the Sustainable Development Goal-4 Targets set at the conference held at Incheon of South Korea in 2015.
