Committee: United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund

(UNICEF)
Country: New Zealand
Agenda: Bridging literacy gap between men and women

Illiteracy continues to be one of the colossal hindrances in our path to development,

with an indirect but extremely detrimental effect on the quality of life of today’s
youth. The high rates of illiteracy among world citizens—and the corollary gender gap
in literacy attainment—are attributable to many social, economic and cultural factors
ranging from accessibility to closet duress. New Zealand is one of the minority of
countries who have combatted the issue of literacy gap between genders efficiently
with both the genders reaching an equilibrium of 99%.

The complexity of the global economy and the political and social challenges the world
faces place ever increasing demands on strong literacy skills. Literacy determines, to a
large extent, young children’s educational and life chances and is fundamental in achieving
social justice. Given the importance of acquiring literacy skills, it is understandable that
New Zealand makes it a top priority to strive to achieve excellence in literacy education,
keeping in mind Article 26 of the Universal Declaration Of Human’s Rights and ensuring
that everyone is provided with access to education equally. Over the past few years, we
have succeeded in bridging the literacy gap between the genders and are supportive of
nations willing to bring necessary amendments to diminish the gap too. New Zealand is
determined to provide its citizens a fair chance at succeeding in life, with ingress to
literacy and training through policies and plans like Ka Hitika, Child Protection Policy, Mou
te Reo and many more.

New Zealand applauds the UNICEF as a whole for working towards bridging the literacy
gap relentlessly through strategies like Pacific Islands Literacy and Numeracy Assessment
(PILNA) and EFA, which New Zealand was actively a part of. The CFS framework adopted by
the UN also establishes a holistic, rights-based and child-participatory approach to
educational development with special emphasis on nations struggling with raising skill sets
of their human capital. We can say that small steps sometimes make huge changes and
those are the sort of changes we need in our children to help them get towards a healthy
and bright future.

Solutions are in fact countless, but what needs to be focused on is the individuality of each
situation- while some people might not be able to willing to send their daughters to school
due to financial restraints, others are held back by their conservative social backgrounds.
Plausible solutions include developing a healthy
and safe environment in schools, building a connect with rural audiences who have a
different background and reiterating the importance and benefits of literacy and education,
initiating major efforts in decreasing the gender gap not only in the field of education but
everywhere else.

References:

https://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/newzealand_statistics.html

https://www.unicef.org/Paper_on_Establishing_and_Effecting_Quality_Service_Standards_f
or_Effective_Schools.pdf

https://www.education.govt.nz/our-work/overall-strategies-and-policies/