European Declaration of the Right to Literacy

Literacy has been recognized as a human right for over 50 years in several international declarations and initiatives. Since its creation, UNESCO has promoted literacy as a right: 1975 Persepolis Declaration, 1997 Hamburg Declaration, 2006-2015 Literacy Initiative for Empowerment (LIFE), with a focus on those countries that face the biggest literacy challenges, mainly in Africa and Asia.

ELINET experts consider the Universal Declaration as too unspecific with regard to literacy. They have identified 11 conditions required to put this basic right into practice. The basic right is:
“Everyone in Europe has the right to acquire literacy. EU Member States should ensure that people of all ages, regardless of social class, religion, ethnicity, origin and gender, are provided with the necessary resources and opportunities to develop sufficient and sustainable literacy skills in order to effectively understand and use written communication be in handwritten, in print or digital form.”

The full version of the Declaration can be downloaded here 

See declaration and translations in Bulgarian, Croatian, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovakian, Swedish and Tsechian HERE