UNESCO and NORAD launched the AI-powered Global Digital Library in Asia to promote early grade reading

More than 617 million - six out of ten - children and adolescents worldwide do not achieve minimum proficiency in reading and mathematics. 40 percent of the world’s population lacks access to education in the language they speak or understand. It is crucial to promote early grade literacy attainment in local languages, and to ensure the right of education of people using indigenous and underserved languages.

Education 2030 Incheon Declaration highlights the importance of the creation of safe, healthy, gender-responsive, inclusive and adequately resourced environments that facilitate learning. In response to the call, the Global Digital Library (GDL) collects existing high-quality open educational reading resources and makes them available on the web, mobile and for print. Its goal is to provide resources in 100 languages by the end of 2020. The platform also supports translation and localization of GDL-resources to more than 300 languages.

On 11 November 2019, with joint efforts, UNESCO, the GDL team under the auspices of Norad and the Global Book Alliance launched the GDL in Kathmandu. Around 200 participants attended the Asia regional launch, including representatives from Ministries of education, donor community and NGOs on supplementary reading materials, international, regional and national organizations, local publishers, digital distributors and content providers in Asia.

Altogether reading materials in 41 Asian languages including seven Nepali languages were launched. The event sought to highlight the importance of the platform for stakeholders involved in reading materials development, primary education programming, and community reading programmes in the Asia region.

At the opening, the following high-level officials from stakeholder organizations delivered inspiring remarks to acknowledge the fruitful achievements of the GDL since inception and reaffirmed their commitment to supporting the provision of high-quality reading resources in underserved languages worldwide.

• Mr Lasse Bjørn Johannessen, Norwegian Ambassador to Nepal
• Ms Ho Thanh My Phuong, PhD, Director, SEAMEO Regional Training Centre (SEAMEO RETRAC)
• Ms Adriana Hayes, Acting Mission Director, U.S. Agency for International Development, Nepal
• Ms Julie Cram, Deputy Assistant Administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development (Video Message)
• Mr Libing Wang, PhD, Chief of Section for Educational Innovations and Skills Development (EISD), UNESCO Bangkok
• Mr Lava Deo Awasthi, PhD, Chairperson, Language Commission, Nepal
• Mr Mahesh Prasad Dahal, Secretary for Education, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Nepal, who also chaired of the opening session

© Aagat Awasthi

After the opening, the GDL team led by Mr Christer Gundersen, organized demonstration of the GDL platform, with a focus on the content in Asian languages, and demo of how to translate resources. During the session, Partners from Google India, Pratham Books, the Asia Foundation, Room to Read and World Education shared their good practices on reading programmes.

Back to back with the regional launch, a workshop on country needs and practices on early grade digital reading programmes in local languages in Asia was held in the morning of 12 November. Country representatives from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam presented their country contexts and initiatives on the use of digital reading programmes. The workshop also fuelled a wider discussion on the use of openly licensed educational resources and explored the possible collaboration in synergizing existing practices with the GDL.

For more information on the initiative, please contact the responsible officer at UNESCO, Mr Fengchun Miao, at f.miao@unesco.org; and the responsible contact at GDL, Mr Christer Gundersen, at christergundersen@ndla.no.