Literacy, Information, and Development in Morocco during the 1990s

According to Frank Moore Cross , these inscriptions consisted of alphabetic signs that originated during the transitional development from pictographic script to a linear alphabet. Moreover, he asserts, "These inscriptions also provided clues to extend the decipherment of earlier and later alphabetic texts". The consonantal system of the Canaanite script inspired alphabetical developments in subsequent systems.

During the Late Bronze Age , successor alphabets appeared throughout the Mediterranean region and were employed for Phoenician , Hebrew and Aramaic. According to Goody, these cuneiform scripts may have influenced the development of the Greek alphabet several centuries later.

Historically, the Greeks contended that their writing system was modeled after the Phoenicians. However, many Semitic scholars now believe that Ancient Greek is more consistent with an early form Canaanite that was used c. While the earliest Greek inscriptions are dated c. Phoenician, which is considered to contain the first "linear alphabet" , rapidly spread to the Mediterranean port cities in northern Canaan. When the Israelites migrated to Canaan between and BCE, they also adopted a variation of the Canaanite alphabet.

Baruch ben Neriah , Jeremiah's scribe, used this alphabet to create the later scripts of the Old Testament. It was then that the new script "Square Hebrew" emerged and the older one rapidly died out. The Aramaic alphabet also emerged sometime between and BCE. As the Bronze Age collapsed , the Aramaeans moved into Canaan and Phoenician territories and adopted their scripts.

Although early evidence of this writing is scarce, archeologists have uncovered a wide range of later Aramaic texts, written as early as the seventh century BCE. Due to its longevity and prevalence in the region, Achaemenid rulers would come to adopt it as a "diplomatic language". Aramaic merchants carried older variations of the language as far as India , where it later influenced the development of Brahmi scripture. It also led to the developments of Arabic , Pahlavi an Iranian adaptation , "as well as for a range of alphabets used by early Turkish and Mongol tribes in Siberia , Mongolia and Turkestan ".

The Aramaic language would die out with the spread of Islam and with it, its influence of Arabic. Until recently it was thought that the majority of people were illiterate in ancient times. The Republic amassed huge archives of reports on every aspect of public life". The army kept extensive records relating to supply and duty rosters and submitted reports. Merchants, shippers, and landowners and their personal staffs especially of the larger enterprises must have been literate.

Demographics of Morocco

In the late fourth century the Desert Father Pachomius would expect literacy of a candidate for admission to his monasteries:. And if he is illiterate he shall go at the first, third and sixth hours to someone who can teach and has been appointed for him. He shall stand before him and learn very studiously and with all gratitude. The fundamentals of a syllable, the verbs and nouns shall all be written for him and even if he does not want to he shall be compelled to read.

In the course of the 4th and 5th century the Churches made efforts to ensure a better clergy in particular among the bishops who were expected to have a classical education, which was the hallmark of a socially acceptable person in higher society and possession of which allayed the fears of the pagan elite that their cultural inheritance would be destroyed. Even after the remnants of the Western Roman Empire fell in the s literacy continued to be a distinguishing mark of the elite as communications skills were still important in political and Church life bishops were largely drawn from the senatorial class in a new cultural synthesis that made "Christianity the Roman religion,".

Post-Antiquity illiteracy was made much worse by the lack of a suitable writing medium. When the Western Roman Empire collapsed, the import of papyrus to Europe ceased. Since papyrus perishes easily and does not last well in the wetter European climate, parchment was used, which was expensive and accessible only by the Church and the wealthy. Paper was introduced into Europe in Spain in the 11th century.

Its use spread north slowly over the next four centuries. Literacy saw a resurgence as a result, and by the 15th century paper had largely replaced parchment except for luxury manuscripts. The Reformation stressed the importance of literacy and being able to read the Bible. The Protestant countries were the first to attain full literacy; Scandinavian countries were fully literate in the early 17th century. The Church [ which? Literacy data published by UNESCO displays that since , the adult literacy rate at the world level has increased by 5 percentage points every decade on average, from However, for four decades, the population growth was so rapid that the number of illiterate adults kept increasing, rising from million in to million in Since then, the number has fallen markedly to million in , although it remains higher than in despite decades of universal education policies, literacy interventions and the spread of print material and information and communications technology ICT.

However, these trends have been far from uniform across regions. Available global data indicates significant variations in literacy rates between world regions. North America , Europe , West Asia , and Central Asia have achieved almost full adult literacy individuals at or over the age of 15 for both men and women. In much of the world, high youth literacy rates suggest that illiteracy will become less and less common as younger generations with higher educational attainment levels replace older ones.

That being said, literacy has rapidly spread in several regions in the last twenty-five years see image. On a worldwide scale, illiteracy disproportionately impacts women. This disparity was even starker in previous decades: Sub-Saharan Africa , the region with the lowest overall literacy rates, also features the widest gender gap: The World Conference on Education for All , held in Jomtien, Thailand, would bring attention to the literacy gender gap and prompt many developing countries to prioritize women's literacy.

In many contexts, female illiteracy co-exists with other aspects of gender inequality. Martha Nussbaum , for example, make illiterate women more vulnerable to becoming trapped in an abusive marriage, given that illiteracy limits their employment opportunities and worsens their intra-household bargaining position.

• Six Lieder, Op. 71, No. 1: Comfort (Tröstung).
• Introduction.
• Statistics | At a glance: Morocco | UNICEF!
• Demographics of Morocco - Wikipedia?
• Psychologie Environnementale (French Edition).
• JOB! Killing the Most Sacred Cow.

Moreover, Nussbaum links literacy to the potential for women to effectively communicate and collaborate with one another in order "to participate in a larger movement for political change. Social barriers prevent expanding literacy skills among women and girls. Making literacy classes available can be ineffective when it conflicts with the use of the valuable limited time of women and girls. A World Bank and the International Center for Research on Women review of academic literature would conclude that child marriage , which predominantly impacts girls, tends to reduce literacy levels.

While women and girls comprise the majority of the global illiterate population, in many developed countries a literacy gender gap exists in the opposite direction. Many policy analysts consider literacy rates as a crucial measure of the value of a region's human capital. For example, literate people can be more easily trained than illiterate people, and generally have a higher socioeconomic status; [44] thus they enjoy better health and employment prospects.

The international community has come to consider literacy as a key facilitator and goal of development. Illiterate people are generally less knowledgeable about hygiene and nutritional practices, an unawareness which can exacerbate a wide range of health issues. For example, a descriptive research survey project correlates literacy levels with the socioeconomic status of women in Oyo State, Nigeria. The study claims that developing literacy in this area will bring "economic empowerment and will encourage rural women to practice hygiene, which will in turn lead to the reduction of birth and death rates.

Literacy can increase job opportunities and access to higher education. This concluded that there were economic gains for the individuals, the companies they worked for, and the Exchequer, as well as the economy and the country as a whole—for example, increased GDP. While informal learning within the home can play an important role in literacy development, gains in childhood literacy often occur in primary school settings. Continuing the global expansion of public education is thus a frequent focus of literacy advocates.

Funding for both youth and adult literacy programs often comes from large international development organizations. The report features countries from a variety of regions and of differing income levels, reflecting the general global consensus on "the need to empower women through the acquisition of literacy skills. The Human Development Index , produced by the United Nations Development Programme UNDP , uses education as one of its three indicators; originally, adult literacy represented two-thirds of this education index weight.

In , however, the UNDP replaced the adult literacy measure with mean years of schooling. A UNDP research paper framed this change as a way to "ensure current relevance," arguing that gains in global literacy already achieved between and meant that literacy would be "unlikely to be as informative of the future. Unlike medieval times, when reading and writing skills were restricted to a few elites and the clergy, these literacy skills are now expected from every member of a society.

There are millions, the majority of whom are women, who lack opportunities to learn or who have insufficient skills to be able to assert this right. The challenge is to enable them to do so. This will often imply the creation of preconditions for learning through awareness raising and empowerment.

The public library has long been a force promoting literacy in many countries. This committee's charge includes ensuring equitable access to information and advocating for adult new and non-readers. They might have difficulty getting and maintaining a job, providing for their families, or even reading a story to their children. For adults, the library might be the only source of a literacy program.

Parents, caregivers, and educators can even start a book club. This community literacy program was initiated in by the Orange County Public Library in California. The organization builds on people's experience as well as education rather than trying to make up for what has not been learned. The program seeks to equip students with skills to continue learning in the future.

The person becomes an example to children and grandchildren and can better serve the community. Located in Boulder, Colorado , the program recognized the difficulty that students had in obtaining child care while attending tutoring sessions, and joined with the University of Colorado to provide reading buddies to the children of students. Reading Buddies matches children of adult literacy students with college students who meet with them once a week throughout the semester for an hour and a half. The college students receive course credit to try to enhance the quality and reliability of their time.

The goal is to help the child gain interest in books and feel comfortable reading aloud. Time is also spent on word games, writing letters, or searching for books in the library. Throughout the semester the pair work on writing and illustrating a book together. The college student's grade is partly dependent on the completion of the book. Although Reading Buddies began primarily as an answer to the lack of child care for literacy students, it has evolved into another aspect of the program.

Approximately , adults in Hillsborough County are illiterate or read below the fourth-grade level. Working since , the HLC is "committed to improving literacy by empowering adults through education". Through one-on-one tutoring, the organization works to help adult students reach at least the fifth-grade level.

Traditionally, literacy is the ability to use written language actively and passively; one definition of literacy is the ability to "read, write, spell, listen, and speak". Some have argued that the definition of literacy should be expanded. For example, in the United States , the National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association have added "visually representing" [ clarification needed ] to the traditional list of competencies. Similarly, in Scotland , literacy has been defined as: A basic literacy standard in many places is the ability to read the newspaper.

Increasingly, communication in commerce and in general requires the ability to use computers and other digital technologies. Since the s, when the Internet came into wide use in the United States, some have asserted that the definition of literacy should include the ability to use tools such as web browsers , word processing programs, and text messages. Similar expanded skill sets have been called computer literacy , information literacy , and technological literacy.

Other genres under study by academia include critical literacy , media literacy , ecological literacy and health literacy [88] With the increasing emphasis on evidence-based decision making, and the use of statistical graphics and information, statistical literacy is becoming a very important aspect of literacy in general.

The International Statistical Literacy Project [89] is dedicated to the promotion of statistical literacy among all members of society.

All Countries and Economies

Given that a large part of the benefits of literacy can be obtained by having access to a literate person in the household, some recent literature in economics, starting with the work of Kaushik Basu and James Foster, distinguishes between a "proximate illiterate" and an "isolated illiterate". The former refers to an illiterate person who lives in a household with literates and the latter to an illiterate who lives in a household of all illiterates. What is of concern is that many people in poor nations are not just illiterates but isolated illiterates.

Teaching English literacy in the United States is dominated by a focus on a set of discrete decoding skills. From this perspective, literacy—or, rather, reading—comprises a number of subskills that can be taught to students. These skill sets include phonological awareness , phonics decoding , fluency , comprehension , and vocabulary. Mastering each of these subskills is necessary for students to become proficient readers. From this same perspective, readers of alphabetic languages must understand the alphabetic principle to master basic reading skills.

For this purpose a writing system is "alphabetic" if it uses symbols to represent individual language sounds , [91] though the degree of correspondence between letters and sounds varies between alphabetic languages. Syllabic writing systems such as Japanese kana use a symbol to represent a single syllable, and logographic writing systems such as Chinese use a symbol to represent a morpheme.

There are any number of approaches to teaching literacy; [93] each is shaped by its informing assumptions about what literacy is and how it is best learned by students. Phonics instruction, for example, focuses on reading at the level of the word. It teaches readers to observe and interpret the letters or groups of letters that make up words. A common method of teaching phonics is synthetic phonics , in which a novice reader pronounces each individual sound and "blends" them to pronounce the whole word. Another approach is embedded phonics instruction, used more often in whole language reading instruction, in which novice readers learn about the individual letters in words on a just-in-time, just-in-place basis that is tailored to meet each student's reading and writing learning needs.

Embedded instruction combines letter-sound knowledge with the use of meaningful context to read new and difficult words. In a proposal, it has been claimed that reading can be acquired naturally if print is constantly available at an early age in the same manner as spoken language. This proposal challenges the commonly held belief that written language requires formal instruction and schooling. Its success would change current views of literacy and schooling. Using developments in behavioral science and technology, an interactive system Technology Assisted Reading Acquisition, TARA would enable young pre-literate children to accurately perceive and learn properties of written language by simple exposure to the written form.

In Australia a number of State governments have introduced Reading Challenges to improve literacy. The Premier's Reading Challenge in South Australia, launched by Premier Mike Rann has one of the highest participation rates in the world for reading challenges. Programs have been implemented in regions that have an ongoing conflict or in a post-conflict stage. The Norwegian Refugee Council Pack program has been used in 13 post-conflict countries since The program organizers believe that daily routines and other wise predictable activities help the transition from war to peace.

Learners can select one area in vocational training for a year-long period. They complete required courses in agriculture, life skills, literacy and numeracy. Results have shown that active participation and management of the members of the program are important to the success of the program. These programs share the use of integrated basic education, e.

Although there is considerable awareness that language deficiencies lacking proficiency are disadvantageous to immigrants settling in a new country, there appears to be a lack of pedagogical approaches that address the instruction of literacy to migrant English language learners ELLs. Harvard scholar Catherine Snow called for a gap to be addresses: Recent developments to address the gap in teaching literacy to second or foreign language learners has been ongoing and promising results have been shown by Pearson and Pellerine [99] which integrates Teaching for Understanding, a curricular framework from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

A series of pilot projects had been carried out in the Middle East and Africa see Patil, In one case migrant women had been provided with cameras and a walking tour of their local village was provided to the instructor as the women photographed their tour focusing on places and activities that would later be used for writings about their daily life. In essence a narrative of life. Other primers for writing activities include: A series of pilot studies were carried out to investigate alternatives to instructing literacy to migrant ELLs, [] starting from simple trials aiming to test the teaching of photography to participants with no prior photography background, to isolating painting and sketching activities that could later be integrated into a larger pedagogical initiative.

Literacy in India - Wikipedia

In efforts to develop alternative approaches for literacy instruction utilising visual arts, work was carried out with Afghan labourers, Bangladeshi tailors, Emirati media students, internal Ethiopian migrants both labourers and university students , and a street child. It should be pointed out that in such challenging contexts sometimes the teaching of literacy may have unforeseen barriers. The EL Gazette reported that in the trials carried out in Ethiopia, for example, it was found that all ten of the participants had problems with vision.

In a visual arts approach to literacy instruction a benefit can be the inclusion of both a traditional literacy approach reading and writing while at the same time addressing 21st Century digital literacy instruction through the inclusion of digital cameras and posting images onto the web. Many scholars [] feel that the inclusion of digital literacy is necessary to include under the traditional umbrella of literacy instruction specifically when engaging second language learners.

Other ways in which visual arts have been integrated into literacy instruction for migrant populations include integrating aspects of visual art with the blending of core curricular goals. It is not just limited to English. In many instances a migrant will not have the opportunity, for many obvious reasons, to start school again at grade one and acquire the language naturally. In these situations alternative interventions need to take place. In working with illiterate people and individuals with low-proficiency in an L2 following the composition of some artifact like in taking a photo, sketching an event, or painting an image, a stage of orality has been seen as an effective way to understand the intention of the learner.

In the accompanying image from left to right a an image taken during a phototour of the participant's village. This image is of the individual at her shop, and this is one of her products that she sells, dung for cooking fuel. The image helps the interlocutor understand the realities of the participants daily life and most importantly it allows the participant the opportunity to select what they feel is important to them. In this image the student had a very basic ability and with some help was able to write brief captions under the images.

While she speaks a recording of her story takes place to understand her story and to help develop it in the L2. The third image is of a painting that had been used with a composite in Photoshop. With further training participants can learn how to blend images they would like to therefore introducing elements of digital literacies, beneficial in many spheres of life in the 21st century. In the following image see right you can see two samples 1 One in Ethiopia from stencil to more developed composition based on a village tour, photography, and paintings.

From the work based in Ethiopia, participants were asked to rate preference of activity, on a scale of The survey prompt was: On a scale of 1 - 10 how would you rate photography as an activity that helped you get inspiration for your writing activities think of enjoyment and usefulness. The following activities were rated, in order of preference - activities used as primers for writing:. In bringing work together from students in culminating projects, authorship programs have been successful in bringing student work together in book format. Such artifacts can be used to both document learning, but more importantly reinforce language and content goals.

The culmination of such writings, into books can evoke both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Form feedback by students involved in such initiatives the responses have indicated that the healthy pressures of collective and collaborative work was beneficial. Teaching people to read and write, in a traditional sense of the meaning literacy is a very complex task in a native language. To do this in a second language becomes increasingly more complex, and in the case of migrants relocating to another country there can be legal and policy driven boundaries that prohibit the naturalization and acquisition of citizen ship based on language proficiency.

In Canada [] for example despite a debate, language tests are required years after settling into Canada. Similar exists globally, see: But Canadian EL instructor and photographer Steve Pellerine has found that the technique, along with others based around the visual arts, has helped some of his most challenging groups to learn". Visual arts have been viewed as an effective way to approach literacy instruction - the art being primers for subsequent literacy tasks within a scaffolded curricular design, such at Teaching for Understanding TfU or Understanding by Design UbD.

Nearly one in ten young adult women has poor reading and writing skills in the UK in the 21st century. This seriously damages their employent prospects and many are trapped in poverty. Lack of reading skill is a social stigma and women tend to hide their difficulty rather than seeking help.

Capabilities

Girls on average do better than boys at English in school. In 12th and 13th century England , the ability to recite a particular passage from the Bible in Latin entitled a common law defendant to the so-called benefit of clergy —i. Thus literate lay defendants often claimed the right to benefit of clergy, while an illiterate person who had memorized the psalm used as the literacy test, Psalm 51 "O God, have mercy upon me Even with near universal literacy rates, the gap between male and female literacy rates continued to persist until the early twentieth century.

Many female readers in the West during the nineteenth century were able to read, but unable to write. Formal higher education in the arts and sciences in Wales , from the Dark Ages to the 18th century, was the preserve of the wealthy and the clergy. As in England, Welsh history and archaeological finds dating back to the Bronze Age reveal not only reading and writing, but also alchemy , botany , advanced maths and science. Following the Roman occupation and the conquest by the English, education in Wales was at a very low ebb in the early modern period; in particular, formal education was only available in English while the majority of the population spoke only Welsh.

The first modern grammar schools were established in Welsh towns such as Ruthin , Brecon , and Cowbridge. One of the first modern national education methods to use the native Welsh language was started by Griffith Jones in He organized and introduced a Welsh medium circulating school system, which was attractive and effective for Welsh speakers, while also teaching them English, which gave them access to broader educational sources.

The circulating schools may have taught half the country's population to read. Literacy rates in Wales by the midth century were one of the highest. The ability to read did not necessarily imply the ability to write. This was directly dependent on the need to read religious texts in the Lutheran faith in Sweden and Finland.

As a result, literacy in these countries was inclined towards reading, specifically. The exception to this rule were the men and women of Iceland who achieved widespread literacy without formal schooling, libraries, or printed books via informal tuition by religious leaders and peasant teachers. Historian Ernest Gellner argues that Continental European countries were far more successful in implementing educational reform precisely because their governments were more willing to invest in the population as a whole.

Although the present-day concepts of literacy have much to do with the 15th-century invention of the movable type printing press , it was not until the Industrial Revolution of the midth century that paper and books became affordable to all classes of industrialized society. Until then, only a small percentage of the population were literate as only wealthy individuals and institutions could afford the materials. Even today [update] , the cost of paper and books is a barrier to universal literacy in some less-industrialized nations. On the other hand, historian Harvey Graff argues that the introduction of mass schooling was in part an effort to control the type of literacy that the working class had access to.

According to Graff, literacy learning was increasing outside of formal settings such as schools and this uncontrolled, potentially critical reading could lead to increased radicalization of the populace. In his view, mass schooling was meant to temper and control literacy, not spread it. Research on the literacy rates of Canadians in the colonial days rested largely on examinations of the proportion of signatures to marks on parish acts birth, baptismal, and marriage registrations. Although some researchers have concluded that signature counts drawn from marriage registers in nineteenth century France corresponded closely with literacy tests given to military conscripts, [] others regard this methodology as a "relatively unimaginative treatment of the complex practices and events that might be described as literacy" Curtis, , p.

Magnuson's research revealed a trend: In the 19th century, everything about print changed, and literature in its many forms became much more available. Concerned about the strong French Canadian presence in the colony, the British authorities repeatedly tried to help establish schools that were outside the control of religious authorities, but these efforts were largely undermined by the Catholic Church and later the Anglican clergy.

From the early s in Lower Canada , classical college curriculum, which was monopolized by the Church, was also subject to growing liberal and lay criticism, arguing it was fit first and foremost to produce priests, when Lower Canadians needed to be able to compete effectively with foreign industry and commerce and with the immigrants who were monopolizing trade Curtis, Granted the power to organize parish schooling through the Vestry School Act of , the Catholic clergy did nothing effective.

Despite this, the invention of the printing press had laid the foundation for the modern era and universal social literacy, and so it is that with time, "technologically, literacy had passed from the hands of an elite to the populace at large. Historical factors and sociopolitical conditions, however, have determined the extent to which universal social literacy has come to pass". In only about half of French Canadian men in Canada self-reported that they were literate, whereas 90 percent of other Canadian men said they could read and write, but information from the Canadian Families Project sample of the Census of Canada indicated that literacy rates for French Canadians and other Canadians increased, as measured by the ability of men between the ages of 16 and 65 to answer literacy questions.

But educators broke from these spheres of influence and also taught literature from a more child-centred perspective: Catholic Church leadership was rejected in favour of government administration and vastly increased budgets were given to school boards across the province. With time, and with continuing inquiry into the literacy achievement levels of Canadians, the definition of literacy moved from a dichotomous one either a person could, or couldn't write his or her name, or was literate or illiterate , to ones that considered its multidimensionality, along with the qualitative and quantitative aspects of literacy.

In the s, organizations like the Canadian Association for Adult Education CAAE believed that one had to complete the 8th grade to achieve functional literacy. Examination of census data, for example, found that 4,,, or Canada conducted its first literacy survey in which discovered that there were more than five million functionally illiterate adults in Canada, or 24 per cent of the adult population.

Literacy, for the first time, was measured on a continuum of skills. A stratified multi-stage probability sample design was used to select the sample from the Census Frame. The sample was designed to yield separate samples for the two Canadian official languages, English and French , and participants were measured on the dimensions of prose literacy, document literacy and quantitative literacy. The survey found that This survey contained identical measures for assessing the prose and document literacy proficiencies, allowing for comparisons between survey results on these two measures and found that In the last 40 years, the rate of illiteracy in Mexico has been steadily decreasing.

In the s, because the majority of the residents of the federal capital were illiterate, the planners of the Mexico City Metro designed a system of unique icons to identify each station in the system in addition to its formal name. Mexico still has a gender educational bias. The illiteracy rate for women in the last census was 8.

Rates differ across regions and states. In contrast, the illiteracy rates in the Federal District D. Before the 20th century white illiteracy was not uncommon and many of the slave states made it illegal to teach slaves to read. There were significant improvements for African American and other races in the early 20th century as the descendants of former slaves, who had had no educational opportunities, grew up in the post Civil War period and often had some chance to obtain a basic education.

The gap in illiteracy between white and black adults continued to narrow through the 20th century, and in the rates were about the same. Before colonization, oral storytelling and communication composed most if not all Native American literacy. Native people communicated and retained their histories verbally—it was not until the beginning of American Indian boarding schools that reading and writing forms of literacy were forced onto Native Americans.

While literacy rates of English increased, forced assimilation exposed Native children to physical and sexual abuse , unsanitary living conditions, and even death. While these formalized forms of literacy prepared Native youth to exist in the changing society, they destroyed all traces of their cultural literacy. Native children would return to their families unable to communicate with them due to the loss of their indigenous language. In the 20th and 21st century, there is still a struggle to learn and maintain cultural language.

But education initiatives and programs have increased overall—according to the census, 86 percent of the overall population of Native Americans and Alaska Natives have high school diplomas, and 28 percent have a bachelor's degree or higher. In in Brazil, Paulo Freire was arrested and exiled for teaching peasants to read. They are encouraged to continue their education and become professionals.

The literacy rates in Africa vary significantly between countries. The highest registered literacy rate in the region is in Equatorial Guinea and Libya both They often must leave school because of being needed at home to farm or care for siblings. In sub-Saharan Africa, the rate of literacy has not improved enough to compensate for the effects of demographic growth. The countries with the lowest levels of literacy in the world are also concentrated in this region.

These include Niger Burkina Faso has a very low literacy rate of The government defines literacy as anyone at least 15 years of age and up who can read and write. A severe lack of primary school teachers causes problems for any attempt to improve the literacy rate and school enrollment. Egypt has a relatively high literacy rate. The Ethiopians are among the first literate people in the world, having written, read, and created manuscripts in their ancient language of Ge'ez Amharic since the second century CE.

The Guinea government defines literacy as anyone who can read or write who is at least 15 years old. This project was developed to increase agriculture production, develop key skills, resolve conflict, improve literacy, and numeracy skills. The LCRP worked within refugee camps near the border of Sierra Leone, however this project only lasted from to There are several other international projects working within the country that have similar goals. In January , the government began offering a restricted program of free secondary education.

Most of this literacy, however, is elementary—not secondary or advanced. The literacy rate is 51 percent for males and The ratio of boys to girls in primary and secondary schools is 87 to 9. In the past 20 years, the government has taken initiatives to improve the status of women in society.

For instance, the Moudawana code of law has greatly improved the family status code. Most Moroccans live west and north of the Atlas Mountains , a range that insulates the country from the Sahara Desert. Casablanca is the largest city and the centre of business and industry, and has the leading seaport and airport.

Rabat is the seat of government. Tangier and Nador are the two major northern seaports on the Mediterranean. Fez is a cultural, religious and industrial centre. Marrakesh and Agadir are the two major tourist centres. Oujda is the largest city of eastern Morocco. Meknes houses the military academy. Kenitra has the largest military airbase.

Mohammedia has the largest oil refineries and other major industrial installations. Education in Morocco is free and compulsory through primary school age Nevertheless, many children—particularly girls in rural areas—still do not attend school. The country's illiteracy rate is usually around 50 percent for most of the country, but reaches as high as 90 percent among girls in rural regions. In July , Prime minister Driss Jettou announced that illiteracy rate has declined by 39 percent, while two million people had attended literacy courses during the past four years.

Morocco has about , students enrolled in 14 public universities. The oldest and among the most prestigious is Mohammed V in Rabat, with faculties of law, sciences, liberal arts, and medicine. University of Karueein , in Fez, has been a centre for Islamic studies for more than 1, years. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Ethnic groups in Morocco. Scarecrow Press — via Google Books. Beyond Tribe and Nation in the Maghrib". Indiana University Press — via Google Books. Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic Somaliland.

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