{"id":236076,"date":"2016-09-09T06:00:09","date_gmt":"2016-09-08T20:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=236076"},"modified":"2016-09-09T06:00:09","modified_gmt":"2016-09-08T20:00:09","slug":"contest-winners-announced-intl-literacy-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/contest-winners-announced-intl-literacy-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Contest winners announced on Int\u2019l Literacy Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

SUVA, Fiji<\/strong>\u2014Alexandria Slaven of Samoa penned the words \u201cilliteracy kills dreams\u201d in her winning letter for a Pacific Community (SPC) multimedia competition on why reading matters.<\/p>\n

Miss Slaven, 14, is one of three winners announced today by SPC to mark the 50th Anniversary of International Literacy Day. <\/p>\n

\u201cI love to read because it takes me places. We need to be obsessed as a nation to teach our children how to read, to minimize poverty and illiteracy. Let\u2019s make the world a better place,\u201d Miss Slaven wrote in her winning letter.<\/p>\n

The Poster category was taken by John Pettitt, 15, of Fiji who entered an A2 sized poster featuring Masi motifs and an array of colours with reasons as to why he reads. \u201cIt stimulates my mind, helps increase my knowledge and reduces my stress levels\u201d were some reasons he stated. <\/p>\n

The winning video was a group entry by school children who were part of a school holiday video project workshop at the M\u00e9diath\u00e8que municipale de Rivi\u00e8re \u2013Sal\u00e9e from New Caledonia that highlighted the right of the readers.<\/p>\n

SPC launched the competition to promote the benefits of literacy among Pacific children and youth following the release in June of the latest Pacific Islands Literacy and Numeracy Assessment (PILNA) which revealed cause for concern with literacy among Year 4 and Year 6 students.<\/p>\n

In the assessment, which involved 45,000 students from some 700 schools in 13 countries, just 46 percent of Year 4 students and 46 percent of Year 6 students met or exceeded the regional literacy benchmark. <\/p>\n

Young people were invited to share a story in the form of a letter, email, storybook, poster or video about how reading has helped them. <\/p>\n

The director of SPC\u2019s Educational Quality and Assessment Programme, Michelle Belisle, said the Pacific-wide competition drew attention and participation from New Caledonia, Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa and Tonga. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe entries showcased how young people have an understanding of the importance of reading and how it contributes to their current well-being and its advantages as an avenue for further education and consequently employment,\u201d Ms Belisle said. <\/p>\n

The latest PILNA was coordinated by SPC in partnership with the New Zealand Aid Programme, and supported by Pacific Islands\u2019 education ministries, teachers and parents. <\/p>\n

Global celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of International Literacy Day are being led by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and highlight advances in literacy and its effects on everyday people. <\/p>\n

Despite some areas of concern, the Pacific is making incremental advances in literacy, as shown in the PILNA report, Belisle said. (PR)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SUVA, Fiji\u2014Alexandria Slaven of Samoa penned the words \u201cilliteracy kills dreams\u201d in her winning letter…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[164,67,166,3151],"class_list":["post-236076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-fiji","tag-people","tag-spc","tag-suva"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236076\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}