Sep­tem­ber 8 is the day de­clared by the Unit­ed Na­tions as In­ter­na­tion­al Lit­er­a­cy Day. This year’s theme is “Lit­er­a­cy for a hu­man-cen­tred re­cov­ery: Nar­row­ing the dig­i­tal di­vide.”

In Trinidad and To­ba­go and across the world, the im­pact of COVID-19 has af­fect­ed mil­lions of chil­dren whose learn­ing has been dis­rupt­ed by lock­downs and school clo­sures.

On­line learn­ing, with­out the ben­e­fit of so­cial­is­ing and face-to-face time with teach­ers and friends, has been the new norm since this glob­al pan­dem­ic set in last year.

T&T of­fi­cials have ad­mit­ted more than 2,000 chil­dren dropped out the school sys­tem be­cause they could not ac­cess elec­tron­ic de­vices and in some cas­es, were sim­ply un­able to cope with on­line learn­ing. For some, how­ev­er, it was al­so a case of sur­vival with so many par­ents los­ing jobs due to the shut­down and clo­sures of some of busi­ness­es.

To­day, In­ter­na­tion­al Lit­er­a­cy Day is be­ing ob­served on the eve of the re­lease of this year’s Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ments ex­am re­sults.

The chil­dren who sat this year’s ex­am­i­na­tion cre­at­ed his­to­ry, hav­ing been tu­tored for the ex­am­i­na­tion via on­line plat­forms. It is our fer­vent hope that they will all ex­cel, know­ing that they did their best at a time when the world was fac­ing its worst health cri­sis in decades. Every­one should be proud of them.

This week, school again “re­opened” via vir­tu­al plat­forms. There is hope that once enough chil­dren in the 12-18 age range get vac­ci­nat­ed, those prepar­ing for ex­ams will at least be al­lowed to re­turn to class­rooms.

T&T sub­scribes to sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment goal four of the Unit­ed Na­tions, which speaks to ad­vanc­ing lit­er­a­cy as an in­te­gral facet of life­long learn­ing. Ac­cord­ing to the UN­ESCO, the adult lit­er­a­cy rate for this coun­try in 2010 was 98.7 per cent, up from the 94.97 per cent rate record­ed in 1980.

How­ev­er, this is at odds with a sur­vey done by the Adult Lit­er­a­cy Tu­tors’ As­so­ci­a­tion (AL­TA) and UWI in 1994 and 1995. That adult lit­er­a­cy sur­vey re­vealed that 22-23% of the pop­u­la­tion aged 15 and over were un­able to cope with every­day read­ing and writ­ing. Ac­cord­ing to AL­TA, this meant one in every four Trin­bag­o­ni­ans were not lit­er­ate. AL­TA, on its web­site, says al­though the sur­veys were done over a decade ago, “it is high­ly un­like­ly that a sur­vey to­day would re­veal any pos­i­tive change. AL­TA has been lead­ing the charge to tack­le this coun­try’s low lit­er­ary rate since 1992 by pro­vid­ing read­ing and writ­ing class­es to adults.

As we cel­e­brate to­day and look with an­tic­i­pa­tion to the SEA re­sults to­mor­row, this coun­try must recog­nise that COVID has tak­en away so much from the na­tion’s chil­dren, who are the fu­ture of this coun­try. Those who have am­bi­tions and look for­ward to a fu­ture where they can be­come lead­ers owe it to them to do what is re­quired to en­sure they don’t lose more valu­able in-per­son school time. To do this, more stu­dents and peo­ple must get vac­ci­nat­ed to achieve herd im­mu­ni­ty. No child must be al­lowed to fall through the cracks, nor must they be al­lowed to face the world il­lit­er­ate and un­able to cope. It is our du­ty, as adults, to save our chil­dren and we must do what is right for them.