UNESCO - FIRST LADY LAURA BUSH'S UNESCO ROUNDTABLE ON

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 000254 SIPDIS FROM USMISSION UNESCO PARIS FOR USAID - JOE CARNEY AND ROBIN BRINKLEY For ECA - TOM FARRELL AND MARIANNE CRAVEN E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: UNESCO SCUL KPAO SUBJECT: UNESCO - FIRST LADY LAURA BUSH'S UNESCO ROUNDTABLE ON TEACHER TRAINING AND LITERACY ¶1. Summary. On January 15, 2007, Ambassador Oliver moderated a Roundtable at UNESCO hosted by First Lady Laura Bush and Director General Matsuura on the topic, "Teacher Training and Literacy". The purpose of this roundtable was to highlight the First Lady's role as Honorary Ambassador for the UN Literacy Decade for which UNESCO is the lead agency, by emphasizing her concern for literacy and the related need for an adequate number of qualified teachers in developing countries. UNESCO Ambassadors from Afghanistan, Egypt, and Madagascar, as well as ADG Peter Smith and two practitioners, Mrs. Marie Cecile Traore, Director of Basic Education in Burkina Faso and Dr. Edward Kame'enui, Director of Special Education Research at the U.S. Department of Education participated in this roundtable. End Summary. ¶2. The roundtable focused on training of teachers who teach literacy outside the formal school setting. This roundtable builds on the momentum of the first ever White House Conference on Global Literacy hosted by Mrs. Bush in New York in September 2006. That conference included presenters from nine countries representing all regions of the world and highlighted successful literacy programs in the areas of intergenerational literacy, health literacy and literacy for economic self-sufficiency. ¶3. As a follow-up to the First Lady's initiative, UNESCO will hold five regional conferences on literacy. The first of these will be held in Qatar in March. That meeting will be followed by the Africa regional conference in Mali in September. Three other conferences are planned for Latin America (Costa Rica),Europe and Central Asia (Azerbaijan) and Asia (location to be determined). ¶4. The UNESCO roundtable focused on the need for a greater supply of trained teachers where an acute shortage is affecting efforts to promote literacy and meet the goals of Education for All. The event also served as a bridge between the September White House Conference on Global Literacy and the follow-up UNESCO literacy conference in Qatar in March. ¶5. The three Ambassadors spoke about the challenges each of their countries face in the area of illiteracy and the need for qualified teachers. Ambassador Aziz of Afghanistan spoke about how, until 2001, the Afghan educational system was in ruins because the Taliban denied educational services, particularly to girls. He said there are a huge number of children and adults that need to be educated and 6 million Afghan children are now attending school. However, there is a 60% illiteracy rate and 80% of them are women and girls. ¶6. Ambassador Oliver asked Ambassador Aziz how his country was meeting the challenge of reaching people in rural areas of Afghanistan. Ambassador Aziz said the best way to reach rural areas is through radio. Director General Matsuura interjected that UNESCO has developed more than 20 community media centers in rural areas all over the world, but particularly in developing countries in Asia and Africa, which have been successful in reaching people in remote areas and informing them of programs available to them. ¶7. Ambassador Kenawy of Egypt talked about what Egypt is doing through the Caritas program to provide families of young children basic literacy skills. The Caritas program was one of the presenters at the White Conference on Global Literacy. Ambassador Kenawy spoke about how once family members, particularly mothers, are literate, they can teach their children. Statistics in Egypt have shown that children of literate mothers showed progress in reading and math. ¶8. Ambassador Ranjeva of Madagascar emphasized how important language skills are for people to be literate. In Madagascar, the official language is French, however, most people in Madagascar speak their mother tongue, Malagasy, and even then they are not literate in that language. This becomes a big challenge to achieve literacy. Currently there is a 48% literacy rate in Madagascar. Madagascar is one of seventeen targeted countries for UNESCO's Teacher Training Initiative in sub-Saharan Africa. Ambassador Ranjeva also noted that Madagascar has made tremendous progress in basic education and now the government is turning its attention and resources on the literacy needs in the country. ¶9. The two practitioners, Ms. Traore and Dr. Kame'enui brought a real-life perspective to the roundtable. Dr. Kame'enui spoke about the importance of speech and the alphabetical writing systems in every country. He emphasized that reading does not come naturally and that teachers have to teach the alphabetical written language in the country in order for children and adults to be able to read. Dr. Traore spoke about the need for Burkina Faso to find qualified teachers and the need for ongoing teacher training. She said Burkina Faso is training groups of teachers at the local level based on what teachers' needs are. This allows more experienced teachers to "mentor" new teachers and puts teachers at the heart of the training system in Burkina Faso. ¶10. Finally, Mrs. Bush spoke about how challenging it is for every country to end illiteracy. She emphasized the need for governments to invest in education that will improve opportunities for children and families, strengthen economies, and keep citizens in good health. She mentioned two programs that the Administration is funding. First, the African Education Initiative which, among other things, has committed to providing $600 million to help train more than 900,000 teachers in sub-Saharan Africa by 2010. She also spoke about the Teacher Training Institute in Afghanistan that she visited where women from the Afghan provinces can come and be trained as teachers. This is a partnership between the Afghan government and USAID. She ended her remarks by discussing the White House Conference on Global Literacy and the UNESCO regional literacy conferences and how important these initiatives will be to help countries find out about quality literacy programs. ¶11. Comment. Reaction from the UNESCO secretariat and other delegations has been overwhelmingly positive. Having the First Lady as a guest at a UNESCO event like this shows the U.S.' seriousness of intent in tackling global challenges such as literacy. The excellent press coverage of the event will also go a long way toward countering negative images of the United States so prevalent in foreign media. Oliver