The International Literacy Day (ILD) 2024 is being celebrated under the theme of ‘Promoting multilingual education: Literacy for mutual understanding and peace’. Conflicts today threatens mutual understanding, harmonious co-existence, pluralism and peace, serving as a sharp reminder of the need to begin by constructing the defences of peace in the minds of people, in which literacy is central. Meanwhile, multilingualism is increasingly common in our world, in which approximately 7,000 living languages are unevenly spread across around 200 countries, with higher degrees of diversity in subSaharan Africa and Asia and the Pacific. This is due to a range of factors, including globalization, digitalization, and the increasing mobility of people. As recently as one decade ago, about two in three children grew up in a multilingual context.
In 2022, the number of refugees, many of whom may need
to master a host country’s language, reached 35 million, an increase of 8 million over 2021. More than 108.4 million people had been forcibly displaced due to persecution, conflict, violence or human rights violations, representing an increase of 19 million people over the previous year. Based on the current trend, the number of people who use more than one language in daily life could continue to grow in the coming decades. Meanwhile, about half of living languages are in danger of extinction by the end of the century. In 2021, 77% of communication in cyberspace was dominated by only 10 languages.
Given that languages – oral, written, and sign languages – are not only essential tools for communication and knowledge management but also for embracing and preserving people’s identities, cultures, worldviews, and knowledge systems, conscious efforts are needed to use and preserve everyone’s first languages in daily life and in the public sphere. Globally, however, it is estimated that about 40% of the population does not have access to an education in a language they speak or understand. In Africa, 8 in 10 children learn in a language that is different from their first language, and the prospects of learning in one’s first language appear even slimmer for youth and adults, who may often be outside the formal education system. This not only hinders the acquisition of basic literacy skills, but also undermines linguistic and cultural diversity, creates epistemic and cultural hierarchies, and impacts social and economic development of individuals and communities, which could be detrimental to building inclusive, peaceful and sustainable societies.
