Provisional Summary Record of the One- Hundred and Second Meeting : held at Africa hall , Addis Ababa, on friday 21 february 1964 at 9.15 a.m.

Abstract

The introduction of a literacy programme among the active population had been given prominence in the Addis Ababa plan, adopted by the Conference of African Ministers of Education in 1962 but the method contemplated by UNESCO constituted an innovation. Of the one hundred million illiterates in Africa, seventy million could learn to read and write in the course of a ten year campaign, which would cost 50 million dollars a year in addition to the two thousand five hundred million dollars which Africa will devote every year to education as a whole. It would be for the members of the Commission to calculate the benefit accruing from such an investment. Their recommendations in matters of priority would be of great immediate service for they could provide a basis for action to be taken at the two meetings which UNESCO had organized in Abidjan. Moreover the Secretary General of the United Nations and the Director-General of UNESCO, who under resolution 1937 (XVIIl), would next week, discuss means of organizing a world—wide campaign against illiteracy, could take them into account.