“This week in Learning World we highlight one of the organisations that plays a key role in education, UNESCO. Motivated by its mission to build peace, eradicate poverty and maintain global sustainable development, UNESCO has set a range of objectives. One of them is quality education for all.
Part 1 – Kids Teaching Parents, Mozambique
In Mozambique, UNESCO’s programme ‘Families without Illiteracy’ trains children to teach their own families to read and write. Partly as a result of this initiative, illiteracy in Mozambique has dropped from 90 percent to just under 50 percent today.
Part 2 – Equality of Opportunity
We also spoke to the Director General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, and asked her “Unesco is leading the global movement for education for all. You have set yourself a lofty target — providing basic quality education from children through to adults by 2015. Is this really achievable?
Part 3 – Fisherwomen, Senegal
In Senegal, women buy fish and shellfish straight from the fishing boats, wash them, dry them, and sell them for a living. But their lives have changed in the last three years. Since 2007, UNESCO and the Senegalese Ministries for Education and Fisheries have been running training courses for these women. The aim was not only to teach them reading, writing and maths, but also to improve hygiene, packaging and storing of the fish in order to increase profits.