BIBB supports “Decade for Literacy”

According to a study, there are around 7.5 million functional illiterates living in Germany - that is people who are not able to, or not adequately able to, read and write. This number is likely to increase further due to the immigration into Germany of people fleeing war, terror and intimidation. With the an-nouncement of the “Decade for Literacy”, the Federal Government and Länder are leading the way in education and training policy with the aim of making a sustained improvement to the competency of these individuals over the next ten years in order to improve their employability.

The Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) has established a “Decade for Literacy” coordination office on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The main tasks of the new coordination office in the BIBB is to promote communication and cooperation with and between the respective partners involved over the decade and to provide academic support for the basic education and literacy projects being funded by the Department for Education. The intention is also to identify future research requirements and to develop recommendations for action in the area of policy making.

Finally, the work of the new coordination office will also be to encourage the sharing of experiences and to disseminate examples of good practice at a national and European level. The office will also collaborate closely with the “Reading and writing - my key to the world” campaign funded by the BMBF.

“The acquisition and retention of reading and writing competency represents an important criterion for an individual's employability, particularly in light of rapid technological and structural change”, emphasised BIBB President Friedrich Hubert Esser. “Active participation in society at a professional, social and economic level can only be achieved with adequate knowledge of the written and spoken language. Since it is precisely those issues and target groups with relevance to the employment market which will assume particular importance over the course of the decade, the right approach is to link literacy more closely to vocational learning. The coordination office in the BIBB will make an active contribution in this area.”

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