Winneba (C/R), July 16, GNA - Mr Joshua Mallet, Education Specialist, Literacy and Livelihoods of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) on Friday said that there are 880 million adults of the world, whose illiteracy currently excludes them from full participation in Society.

"More shocking still is the fact that two-thirds of this figure are women, while half of the world poorest countries are in the Commonwealth".

Mr Mallet said this in a paper he delivered at the last day of the on-going West African Teacher Training Consortium workshop at Winneba, which was organized by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) in collaboration with the University of Education, Winneba. There are 25 participants from Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Gambia and Cameroon.

The aims and objectives of the Workshop among other things were to enable Teacher Training Institutions in the sub-region to form a consortium and share ideas on best strategies available in the development and upgrading of teachers.

Mr Mallet said of the 59 million primary school teachers in the world, one-third is within the Commonwealth countries and many of them are either untrained or under-trained and insufficiently supported. "Poverty and unskilled labour characterized Sub-Sahara Africa, and said the changing educational and training environment of the world calls for the adoption of Open Distance Learning (OPL) and added that the formation of the West Africa Teacher Training Consortium is therefore necessary". Mr Mallet said that Ghana is honoured and privileged to have a government that places tremendous emphasizes on education in general and distance education in particular. According to him, (COL) was established in 1988 by the Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development and sharing of open learning and distance education knowledge, resources and technologies. He therefore urged Member-States to take full advantage of Open, distance and technology-mediated learning strategies to provide increased and equitable access to education and training for all their citizens, since education is key to development. 16th July 04