ups & downs of literacy movement in iran: an experience for africa

After victory of islamic revolution in 1979, iran's population was 27 million, of which 14.5 million (52%) were illiterate. to appreciate this progress, unesco's literacy prize was awarded to the literacy movement organization of iran (lmoi) on september 1999. at present and after four decades of iran’s experiences, still the illiteracy rate is around 15%. in fact one of the country’s goals that must be achieved by the end of the sixth development plan (2015 - 2020) is eradication of illiteracy among the age group 10 to 49 years. but nowadays it seems to achieve this goal is not easy because with drop out of 80 thousand students the future of literacy do not look very bright. if current trends continue, eradicate of illiteracy by the end of fifth development plan will be failure. because of this, officials at lmoi are not very optimistic about the future of literacy in the country. from one side, illiterate people are reluctant to literacy and it has become difficult to attract them to attend literacy programs (especially old, women and rural people). on the other side, illiterate people born after the revolution due to life circumstances (such as cultural and economic problems) do not need to be literate. there are thousands of work’s children which even would be difficult to find them. in addition, the literacy campaign is grappling with several problems such as lack of desire for literacy; lack of governmental & non- governmental organizations cooperation and lack of financial support.