By IANS
Dubai : Some 71 million people in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), who make up a quarter of the Arab population the world over, are illiterate, Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa has said.
Much of the region’s failure to eradicate illiteracy was due to obscure curricula, the secretary general said while addressing the inaugural session of the Knowledge Conference here Sunday.
He called upon Arab universities to reform the education system to catch up with a fast moving world, WAM news agency reported Monday.
The conference was opened by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice-president and prime minister of the UAE, and ruler of Dubai.
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), underscored the need to free the education system from ideological influences that hinder the growth of scientific temperament and development of academic and vocational education.
Citing the UNDP’s Arab Human Development Report, Ibsanoglu attributed the lack of literacy to underdevelopment and pointed out that poverty rate in some of the 36 member-countries of the OIC is as high as 60 per cent while literacy rate is as low as 19 per cent.
New incentives to promote creativity must be taken immediately and innovation and research introduced if the region is to achieve significant breakthrough”, Ihsanoglu said.