site.btaUNESCO Director-General Bokova Delivers Lecture on Nelson Mandela Legacy at Sofia University

UNESCO Director-General Bokova Delivers Lecture on Nelson Mandela Legacy at Sofia University


Sofia, January 13 (BTA) - There are still 58 million children in
 the world who do not go to school, UNESCO Director-General
Irina Bokova said on Tuesday. She was delivering a lecture on
Nelson Mandela's legacy at the St. Kliment Ohridski University
of Sofia.
   
Because of the bad quality of education 250 million children in
the world, most of them girls, cannot read or write, even after
they have spent four years at school, Bokova said. This is a
crisis of education, of development and of peace, one that
undermines the social condition of societies and that violates
fundamental human rights, she added.
   
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon should duly be respected for
the fact that he is the first Secretary-General in the history
of the organization to put education on the political agenda of
the UN, Bokova said. UNESCO supports children in conflict zones
such as Syria, Iraq and South Sudan, where millions of children
cannot go to school and others cannot go to school either for
various reasons like poverty, social and religious differences,
she added. 
   
Bokova spoke of Mandela's life and work as a UNESCO goodwill
ambassador in support of education, stating that he became a
symbol of the fight for democracy and justice not only in his
own country but everywhere else in the world. Mandela spent 27
years in prison, but when he was free again he was neither
broken nor bitter. He also showed people that the response to
violence should not be violence because freedom and democracy
are achieved by justice, peace and forgiveness.
   
Today nearly 1,500 million people live in unstable or
conflict-ridden countries and 90 per cent live in developing
countries, many of which face a crisis of the future - without
personal and professional skills, without jobs, Bokova said.

 The lecture was attended by foreign ambassadors to Bulgaria,
Sofia University Rector Ivan Ilchev, professors and
students.