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NICARAGUA: Literacy Goal Met – Further Education Planned

José Adán Silva

MANAGUA, Aug 27 2009 (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.