BY SIMON NDIVE KALLA
The Secretary General of the Association of New Generation Authors (ANGA), Marks Abaiko, has urged Cameroonians to embrace multilingualism. He made the remark during the celebration of the International Literacy Day in Buea recently.
Every year on September 8, the world celebrates International Literacy Day, a day dedicated to promoting the importance of literacy as a tool for empowering individuals and building more inclusive societies.
This year’s edition was held under the theme, “Promoting multilingual education: Literacy for mutual understanding and peace”.
To Marks Abaiko, SG of ANGA, the theme of this year’s international Literacy Day is timely as it fosters multilingual education literacy for mutual understanding and peace.
“I think that it is a theme that matches the happenings of our society. It has come to create an awareness of what is happening in our society which is the various problems occurring in our society arising from the fact that many of us are limited in language (language barrier).”
Abaiko continued that, “So UNESCO is coming to remind us on the necessity to embrace many languages and in Cameroon in particular, I think that is really affecting us because in many instances, Cameroonians are not even up to the bilingual standards that is required by the government, that is, official bilingualism (English and French).”
The celebration was carried out in partnership with Association for Training and Rural Development (ATRUD). The CEO of ASTRUD was represented at the event by a member, Ayinkeng Sandra.
Ayinkeng added her voice to that of the SG of ANGA by emphasising on the importance of the celebration. To her, it is a great honour to be part of a celebration of this magnitude, while appealing to parents or guardians to secure the futures of their children through education.
“Joining ANGA to celebrate today’s World Literacy Day is a great honour because right now we are trying to sensitise parents and youths on how they are going to train our upcoming generation to be better people tomorrow. Actually Education is the key. Being a literate in our society today can lead you to the greatest of all heights. So today’s message is that let everyone come out from their homes and send their children to school”, she said.
According to a participant at the event, Nwanja Lena, “From what I have learnt from this meeting, I think most secondary school students do not know how to read because some lack the necessary textbooks, and others necessary materials. Education is a two way thing, from the part of the teacher and the part of the parents. We are encouraging people out there to promote education on a larger scale”, she said.
International Literacy Day was instituted by UNESCO on October 26, 1966 to be observed every September 8. It was celebrated for the first time in 1967.