3-16-09, 10:01 am
HAVANA, Cuba, Mar 14 (acn) Cuba's 'Yes I Can' literacy teaching program, successfully boosted by Cuba and Venezuela in 26 countries, aspires to reach the figure of five million people taught how to read and write by the end of this year.
Participants at a meeting of top education officials of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) nations underway in Venezuela, are promoting more effective actions that allow the peoples of the region to eradicate illiteracy or reduce it to minimum levels, Juventud Rebelde newspaper reports.
The ministers from Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Venezuela are examining, among other mechanisms, the Grand National Project for Literacy Teaching and Post-Literacy Teaching, by internationalizing the Cuban Yes I Can method and Venezuela's Robinson Mission.
Also serving as reference are the results obtained by Cuba and Venezuela in education. The two nations have joined efforts so Bolivia could be a territory free of illiteracy and for Nicaragua to achieve the same goal over the next few months.
The Minister of the People's Power for Education of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hector Navarro, said that 'what we're talking about is to achieve the articulation of the educational systems of the peoples in The Americas, and within the ALBA we identify the aspects in which we can help each other, by each one giving what it can contribute.'
During the ministerial meeting, in session in the state of Nueva Esparta, it was made known that a group of Venezuelan brigade members, trained with the Cuban method, will soon travel to Nicaragua to strengthen in that nation the program to teach people who still need to learn how to read and write.
Likewise, it was also reported that, at present, requests to boost literacy teaching in Brazil, Honduras and Dominica are under study, in accordance with the principles of solidarity, mutual help, and the complementary nature defended by ALBA.
Nicaragua will declare this month another 14 municipalities as Territories Free of Illiteracy, with which the figure of municipalities benefited from the Cuban method in that country will rise to 56.
According to the General Director for Literacy Teaching and Education for Young People and Adults of Nicaragua's Education Ministry, Reynaldo Mairena, their objective is for that nation to become in 2009 the fourth Latin American country to free of this social scourge, after Cuba (1961), Venezuela (2005) and Bolivia (2009).
Over 240,000 Nicaraguans have already benefited from Yes I Can, a method that won the 2006 King Sejong Literacy Teaching Prize, granted by the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture.
The information provided by the rector of Santiago de Cuba's Higher Pedagogical Institute, Maribel Ferrer, who represents the island's Education Minister at the First Meeting of Education Ministers of the Bolivarian Alternative for The Americas (ALBA).
From the Cuban News Agency
