Nghe An builds many policies for illiteracy eradication

So that every citizen can read and write

From a country with more than 95% of the population being illiterate, Vietnam's illiteracy rate has now made remarkable progress. Specifically, by 2023, the literacy rate for people aged 15 and over will be 98% and the literacy rate for people aged 15 to 35 will be 99% for both men and women.

Besides the achieved results, the work of eliminating illiteracy still has difficulties and challenges such as: a part of the population is illiterate again, some people in mountainous areas still cannot read or write...

Currently, the whole country still has more than 189,000 people aged 15-35 who have not met the literacy standards of level 1 (completion of grade 3) and more than 322,000 people who have not met the literacy standards of level 2 (completion of primary school). Meanwhile, for the age group of 15-60, the rate for level 1 standards is more than 734,000 people and more than 1.7 million people for level 2. The whole country still has 266 communes (accounting for 2.5%), and 42 districts (accounting for 6%) that have only met the literacy standards of level 1; only 48/63 provinces meet the standards and conditions for level 2 literacy, and up to now, 21 provinces have been inspected and recognized by the Ministry of Education and Training.

Regarding the work of eliminating illiteracy, recently, in Vinh city, the Ministry of Education and Training held a workshop on the current situation and solutions to improve the quality of illiteracy eradication work for ethnic minority people in the period of 2023-2030 in the Central provinces.

Speaking at the workshop, Mr. Nguyen Xuan Thuy - Deputy Director of the Department of Continuing Education, Ministry of Education and Training also pointed out many reasons leading to difficulties in illiteracy eradication, mainly due to low awareness of people about illiteracy eradication, not clearly seeing the meaning, role and benefits of literacy for each individual's life and the overall development of the community.

This is also the reason why the effectiveness of illiteracy eradication is not high, the results of illiteracy eradication are not sustainable, and the phenomenon of re-illiteracy increases significantly.

Analyzing the causes, many delegates also said that the reason why illiteracy eradication is not effective is because the current investment from the state budget for illiteracy eradication is still low, and the policies for teachers and participants in illiteracy eradication still have many shortcomings. In fact, the current funding for illiteracy eradication is mainly from the National Target Program 1719, but mainly the funding for illiteracy learners.

Meanwhile, funding for teachers and participants in literacy work must come from the provincial budget. Therefore, localities, especially those with difficult socio-economic conditions, lack funds to implement literacy work.

Nghe An's efforts

Nghe An is the largest province in the country with a population of over 3.4 million people, of which the population of ethnic minorities and mountainous areas accounts for 36.3% of the total population of the province. With an unfavorable starting point, illiteracy and re-illiteracy still occur in Nghe An province. In particular, the number of illiterate people is scattered in remote villages, making it very difficult to organize classes. Not to mention, mobilizing students to attend classes and maintaining the number of students attending classes regularly is also extremely difficult because the majority of students are female, in the main working age of the family. During the farming season, many people often work far from home and far from the village. Some people are old, so the psychology of some students is still hesitant and embarrassed to go to school.

With great efforts, in 2022, Nghe An was recognized as having achieved level 2 literacy standards. To facilitate literacy work, on July 7, 2023, the Provincial People's Council issued Resolution 10 on Regulations on a number of contents and expenditure levels for implementing literacy and universal education work. Currently, the support level to encourage people in ethnic minority areas to participate in literacy training is 1,800,000 VND/person/program. In addition, there are support policies for people working in literacy, support for night lighting, propaganda work, purchase of books, etc.

What is special in Nghe An is that the work of eliminating illiteracy also receives the coordination of many units such as border guards, police, women's associations, and farmers.

Speaking more about this, Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Nhu Hong - Deputy Political Commissar of Economic - Defense Group 4 said: Our unit is stationed in 8 communes in 2 districts of Ky Son and Que Phong. Through the actual work in the locality, we see that the rate of people who have not been to school, or have gone to school but after a long time without access to letters, they become illiterate is still high. This is also an important reason leading to a part of the people having incorrect awareness of the policies of the Party and the State, being easily taken advantage of, incited and enticed by bad people to do bad things. Illiteracy also prevents people from acquiring new scientific and technical knowledge, leading to low labor productivity, crop and livestock productivity.

Based on the above reality, every year the delegation has coordinated with local Party committees, authorities, Department of Education and Training of districts, and primary schools to open classes.literacy, preventing re-blindness. During the implementation of the program, the delegation did a good job of propagating and mobilizing people to participate in learning, flexibly integrating literacy teaching with knowledge dissemination, which has fundamentally changed awareness and farming and livestock raising skills. The classes opened have created a second learning opportunity for the elderly and young people who have never been to school or had to drop out of primary school.

Before the Provincial People's Council issued the policy, the Department also issued annual documents directing and guiding the task of eliminating illiteracy for the education and training departments and to educational institutions. Organizing and maintaining classes is the main task assigned to primary schools located in the area. In addition, with the motto "holding hands to show work", we instruct teachers when teaching illiteracy, the lesson illustrations must closely follow the reality of the learners' working life, helping learners to easily understand, remember for a long time and easily apply and apply to daily life...

Mr. Nguyen Manh Ha - Head of Political and Ideological Department - Continuing Education - Department of Education and Training of Nghe An province