The number of people in China who can't read has shot up to 116 million, wiping out years of hard-won gains against illiteracy as rural poor leave the farm and school for work in the city, state media said yesterday.
Over the last five years, China's illiterate population grew by 30 million, the China Daily reported. According to census data, 87 million adults were illiterate in 2000.
Literacy in China is defined as someone who can read and write 1,500 characters -- a fraction of the 7,000 to 10,000 characters required for college graduates.
Most Chinese were illiterate at the beginning of the 20th century, but the simplification of Chinese characters and education campaigns launched by the communists helped steadily raise literacy levels among adults, hitting about 90 percent in 2000, according to the UN.
The paper quoted an official as saying the main reason for the backsliding was that many young rural poor were dropping out of school to find work in the cities.
Migrant workers in urban centers do not have access to public education, health care and other basic social services.
"The situation is worrying," the paper quoted Gao Xuegui, a Ministry of Education official who focuses on illiteracy, as saying. "Illiteracy is not only a matter of education, but also has a great social impact."
Gao said lack of funding was another reason for the backsliding, and the fact that earlier successes in fighting illiteracy lead some local governments to abandon their literacy programs.
The China Daily said China's illiterate population in 2000 accounted for 11.3 percent of the world's total, but reached 15.01 percent in 2005.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
CONFIDENCE BOOSTER: ’After parkour ... you dare to do a lot of things that you think only young people can do,’ a 67-year-old parkour enthusiast said In a corner of suburban Singapore, Betty Boon vaults a guardrail, crawls underneath a slide, executes forward shoulder rolls and scales a steep slope, finishing the course to applause. “Good job,” the 69-year-old’s coach cheers. This is “geriatric parkour,” where about 20 retirees learned to tackle a series of relatively demanding exercises, building their agility and enjoying a sense of camaraderie. Boon, an upbeat grandmother, said learning parkour has aided her confidence and independence as she ages. “When you’re weak, you will be dependent on someone,” she said after sweating it out with her parkour classmates in suburban Toa Payoh,
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
‘TOXIC CLIMATE’: ‘I don’t really recognize Labour anymore... The idea that you can implement far-right ideas in order to stop the far right is nonsense,’ a protester said Tens of thousands of people on Saturday marched through central London to protest against the far right, weeks ahead of local elections and six months after Britain saw one of its largest far-right demonstrations. Organized by hundreds of civic groups, including trade unions, anti-racism campaigners and Muslim representative bodies, Saturday’s Together Alliance event was billed as the biggest in UK history to counter right-wing extremism. A separate pro-Palestinian march had also converged with the main rally. While organizers claimed 500,000 had turned out in total, the police gave a figure of about 50,000. Protesters carrying placards with slogans such as
RSS