The International Literacy Prizes

UNESCO Literacy Prize website:

"Each year from 1966 UNESCO has celebrated INTERNATIONAL LITERACY DAY with the aim to sensitize and mobilize international public opinion and to elicit their interest and active support for literacy activities one of UNESCO's major preoccupations since its first General Conference in 1946.....

"At present five international literacy prizes are awarded each year:

1. The International Reading Association Literacy Award, created in 1979 by the International Reading Association, a non-governmental organization

2. The Noma Literacy Prize created in 1980 by the late Shoichi Noma, President of Kodansha Ltd., Publishers

3. The two King Sejong Literacy Prizes created in 1989 by the Government of the Republic of Korea to commemorate a king who invented, more than 500 years ago, an alphabet consisting of 22 easy to learn letters

4. The Malcolm Adiseshiah International Literacy Prize created in 1998 by the Government of India to commemorate the late Malcolm Adiseshiah, former Deputy Director-General of UNESCO and Chairman of the International Literacy Prize Jury."