Reading, writing and arithmetic are fundamental skills that a person must have in order to lead an independent and self-reliant life. In other words, basic education is a vital prerequisite for taking part in important processes of society. Today, basic education also includes basic media literacy, the ability to use modern means of communication and sources of information.

Seen in this way, literacy can be understood as a process that adapts to society’s changing minimum requirements on basic education. Literacy is the key to lifelong learning and supports long-term development, equality of women, peace and democracy.

At the World Education Forum in Dakar/Senegal in April 2000, 164 countries agreed on a framework for action as a part of the worldwide endeavour “Education for All” (EFA). The framework defines 6 goals.
Of these, goal 4 is to reduce the illiteracy rate by half by the year 2015. (http://portal.unesco.org/education).

According to the Global Monitoring Report 2009, there are about 776 million illiterates worldwide, that is, 16% of the world’s adult population. Women still comprise almost two-thirds of this statistic. Unfortunately, worldwide progress in the area of literacy has decreased in the last few years. Another alarming statistic is that 80% of the world’s illiterates are concentrated in 20 countries, half of which can be found in only 3 of those countries: Bangladesh, China and India.

Unequal opportunities are closely linked to poverty, residential area, gender, ethnic affiliation and language. The literacy rate is almost always higher in urban areas than in rural ones. The literacy rate amongst adolescents between the ages of 15 and 24 has increased worldwide, from 84 to 89 %.

In the current world report, Education for All 2009, strategies are introduced for optimising the global education situation:

• Good governance is the key to reaching the EFA goals. Inequalities must be abolished by the government, and national expenditures for education must be increased.
• Development aid for basic education must be increased. At the same time, the governance of development aid must be implemented more effectively and the costs of transactions need to be reduced.