afrol News, 8 September - Morocco has secured US $23.8 million funding from European Union today to support the country's literacy programme, Morocco's state MAP news agency reported.

Morocco has among the lowest adult literacy rate in North Africa at 52.3 percent. With these unflattering literacy statistics, government of Morocco has set a target to reduce adult illiteracy by half by 2010.

Launched today to mark World Literacy Day, the programme which would cover four years is aimed at reducing by three percent the illiteracy rate and targets the illiterate people aged between 16 and 35 years.

The grant will be used to reinforce orientation and follow-up capacities of north African kingdom in the field, and to support NGOs by improving their intervention capacity and quality of training.

The funds will also serve to improve quality of life of Moroccans and economic participation of the target population, namely illiterate people aged between 16-35.

For 2007-2008 period, programme is expected to reach some 651,263 beneficiaries in Morocco against less than 300,000 for 2002-2003.

In Morocco, literacy learners have a large scale of opportunities in terms of infrastructure, including the mosques particularly in the rural community.

Noting that illiteracy undermines civic responsibility and the fight against poverty, illness and exclusion, EU representative in Morocco, Bruno Dethomas said EU strongly supports civil society, especially NGO endeavor, to fight against illiteracy.

Though government figures set the illiteracy rate at 43 percent, press reports and unofficial statistics say the rate is more than 60 percent.

In 2002, the government launched a broad literacy programme through which it hopes to bring illiteracy under 20 percent by 2012.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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