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VANCOUVER - The campaign to eliminate illiteracy in the world will benefit from new project funding for the Vancouver-based Commonwealth of Learning, announced by Britain at this year's Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting ( CHOGM ).
COL President, [Dato'] Professor Gajaraj Dhanarajan , welcomed the UK£500,000 "Focus on Reading" grant. "The funds will enable COL to initiate new Commonwealth programmes directed at literacy training for adults - and enhancing the skills of those teaching reading to children."
In line with the focus for all of COL's programming, distance education methods and new technologies are to figure prominently in the new literacy initiatives. Referring to distance education as "the educational wave of the future," Dhanarajan said "with education central to the political agenda, distance education is rapidly becoming the means by which we can provide opportunities for learning to the world's masses."
Dhanarajan noted that around the Commonwealth there are still several hundred million illiterate teenagers and adults and that two-thirds of them are women. "COL will ensure that its new literacy programmes will be available to women on an equitable basis."
Other new Commonwealth project grants announced by the British Department for International Development at the Edinburgh summit will promote human rights and good governance (to the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation), co-operation among Commonwealth NGOs (The Commonwealth Foundation), and gender awareness (resource materials for training).
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