NICARAGUA: Literacy Goal Met – Further
Education Planned
By José Adán
Silva
MANAGUA, Aug 27 (IPS) - After an intense
two-year literacy campaign, Nicaragua has
managed to reduce the number of people who
cannot read and write to below four percent
of the adult population, from nearly 21
percent.
The challenge that the government now plans
to take on is expanding educational coverage
to hundreds of thousands of children and
teenagers who are outside of the school
system, and providing continued education to
the newly literate adults.
Education Ministry statistics show that the
illiteracy rate has plunged after the
national literacy campaign, called "From
Martí to Fidel", which used the Cuban method
"Yes, I Can!"
It consists of 65 daily half-hour lessons,
with a teacher, the use of a television and
a video recorder, a primer and a pencil.
Students pass the course when they can write
a letter to their relatives or teachers.
The approach is used with people over 15,
and can teach reading and writing in 12
weeks. The campaign was formally launched on
Jul. 1, 2007, and the results were announced
on Aug. 22.
Orlando Pineda, the head of the
non-governmental "Carlos Fonseca Amador"
Popular Education Association, told IPS that
the Cuban method "teaches letters starting
from numbers: each letter corresponds to a
number, and letters and numbers are put
together to form common household words."
Pineda, a teacher, tried out the Cuban
method for the first time in this country in
2005, and was amazed at the results. Since
then, he has been teaching literacy
independently.
With 42 years' experience as an educator,
Pineda is a veteran of the first National
Literacy Crusade, carried out in 1980 after
the 1979 revolution led by the Sandinista
National Liberation Front (FSLN) which
ousted the longstanding Somoza family
dictatorship (1937-1979).
Pineda's work was recognised by leftwing
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who
decorated him with the "Rubén Darío" Order
of Cultural Independence, the highest
official distinction awarded to civilians.
Ortega and Education Minister Miguel de
Castilla waited until Aug. 22 to make the
announcement that the illiteracy rate had
fallen from 20.7 percent in 2007 to 3.56
percent in 2009.
In Managua's Revolution Square, the
president and leader of the FSLN celebrated
the achievement of a record fall in the
illiteracy rate, for the second time in less
than 30 years.
The celebration was held on the anniversary
of the first National Literacy Crusade,
which taught more than 400,000 people over
the age of 12 to read and write between Mar.
23 and Aug. 22, 1980. On that occasion, the
illiteracy rate was cut from 53 to 12.9
percent.
The government figures are being certified
by the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organisation
(UNESCO), according to its local
representative, Juan Bautista Arrien.
"This literacy campaign is an extraordinary
effort, and UNESCO commends it. We will not
actually declare the country free of
illiteracy, we are simply anaysing the data,
evaluating and certifying it with
responsibility and scientific rigour. This
adds to the country's prestige," Arrien told
IPS.
An earlier review of the campaign's progress
in June, by UNESCO and other local
educational organisations, confirmed that
the illiteracy rate stood at 4.7 percent on
Jun. 23.
That first phase of the validation of the
results mobilised 500 UNESCO experts in a
statistical, pedagogical and methodological
study of the progress of the literacy
campaign in order to certify a figure of
less than five percent illiteracy, the
threshold required to declare a country
illiteracy-free.
Education Ministry reports indicated that
the campaign has taught over 500,000 people
to read and write, and a further 200,000 are
currently taking the course.
Seventy-five percent of the literacy
students were young people aged between 15
and 30 who dropped out of the education
system since 1990.
In spite of the results and the official
euphoria over the declaration, Minister de
Castilla himself announced that, while the
education system currently covers 1.6
million people, the number of those who need
to study is three million, that is, more
than half the country's total population of
5.7 million.
"It is appalling, but it's a real fact, and
a long-term plan is being organised to
tackle the situation," de Castilla told IPS.
He described a special plan designed to
educate 500,000 children who are outside the
school system, and a further 500,000 people
who have not completed primary education.
The goal, according to the minister, is for
all those who have received literacy
training to finish sixth grade by 2015, and
high school by 2021.
José Antonio Zepeda, secretary-general of
the National Association of Nicaraguan
Educators (ANDEN), a pro-Sandinista
teachers' union, said that more than 30,000
young volunteers are being trained to carry
out a follow-up campaign titled "Yes, I Can
Continue".
"This is not going to stop. When we finish
the literacy campaign we will go straight
into reinforcement and educational
follow-up, so that we don't lose the ground
we've gained," he told IPS.
While the results have been praised by all
sectors linked to education, there are still
plenty of doubts about other aspects.
Jorge Mendoza, the head of the Education and
Human Development Forum (FEDH), said that
declaring Nicaragua an illiteracy-free
country is an essential step in the
country's plans to fight poverty and fulfil
the Millennium Development Goals – a set of
targets adopted by the international
community in 2000. However, in his view
there are still many challenges that will be
hard to overcome.
In his view, although much social progress
has been made in terms of meeting targets
and raising the numbers of the functionally
literate, the country could lose its
educational gains unless the government
manages to make good on the plans to create
a follow-up programme to the literacy
campaign.
"It's not enough to learn to read and write,
unless efforts are made to instil awareness
of the need to carry on studying, and people
are taught that through education and their
own efforts, they can combat poverty," the
researcher told IPS.
According to official figures, 47 percent of
Nicaraguans are living below the poverty
line, although independent sources put the
poverty rate much higher. Nicaragua is the
poorest country in Central America, and has
one of the lowest human development indices
in the Americas.
Mendoza said that although the impact of the
global economic crisis was aggravated by
political problems arising from allegations
of fraud in the 2008 municipal elections -
which led to a suspension of aid by donors -
the government must make more efforts to
increase the resources available for basic
education.
The activist said it was positive that the
country had been able to invest this year in
one million school meals and 480,000
backpacks full of materials for
schoolchildren, but he underlined that many
challenges remain.
"At present, 3.7 percent of GDP is devoted
to education, but seven percent is needed if
the living conditions of teachers and
students are to be improved," he said.
"There are 300,000 children on the streets
who are not attending classes, 492,000
people who are outside the school system,
and 500,000 people who received a
poor-quality education. While countries like
Honduras spend nearly 500 dollars per
student per year, Nicaragua spends less than
200 dollars," Mendoza said. |
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