BOLIVIA: Bolivia wipes out illiteracy thanks to Venezuelan and Cuban-sponsored write-and-read program
Record ID:
741496
BOLIVIA: Bolivia wipes out illiteracy thanks to Venezuelan and Cuban-sponsored write-and-read program
- Title: BOLIVIA: Bolivia wipes out illiteracy thanks to Venezuelan and Cuban-sponsored write-and-read program
- Date: 23rd December 2008
- Summary: VARIOUS OF MUSICAL GROUPS AUTHORITIES
- Embargoed: 7th January 2009 12:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: Education
- Reuters ID: LVASMDAJUDQYGLZI7U7FSRK924H
- Story Text: Bolivia says it has taught 820,000 people to read and write over the last three years, virtually eradicating the country's illiteracy problem.
Bolivia says it has eradicated illiteracy after a three-year project to teach 820,000 people to learn to read and write.
Roughly 97 percent of the adult population in Bolivia, South America's poorest country, can now read and write, project officials said earlier this week.
According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), a country can be declared "illiteracy free"
when over 96 percent of adults have been taught to read and write.
Although most students in Bolivia learned Spanish, some 37,000 people were taught to read and write in indigenous Aymara and Quechua languages.
"At UNESCO we promote the right for every person to have access to education in their native tongue. It is a solid base upon which you can create strong, united, plural nations. What we have seen here is that Bolivia is offering language and writing skills in the languages of Aymara and Quechua as well," United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) representative, Eduardo Matolo, said.
The literacy drive was sponsored by Bolivia's leftist allies Cuba and Venezuela, and a similar project will be launched in neighboring Paraguay.
Thousands of volunteers taught mainly in rural areas and used an alphabetization method developed in Cuba.
"It has been more than 40 years since "Che" [Guevara] heroically fell in this brother land and when the situation was totally distinct. [Back then] more than half of the Bolivian people were illiterate," Cuban Vice President Jose Fernandez said.
In 2001, a government census found nearly 14 percent of Bolivians were illiterate and nearly 26 percent of people in rural areas could not write or read.
The vast majority of students were women from rural areas, project leaders said.
Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo said Bolivia should be proud of the change.
"With pride we see that a part of our America that was condemned to ignorance or the interests of the elite -- those who wanted the people to be silenced, to not read, to not hear, to not find a strong and dignified voice - [but now] here in Bolivia illiteracy has ended!"
Morales is Bolivia's first indigenous president. He is an Aymara Indian and has lamented that his father, like most indigenous Bolivians in rural areas in the 1950s, barely knew how to read and write and needed the help of local teachers to understand some texts.
"The policies that were once implemented so that we were never liberated from illiteracy have now, brothers and sisters, ended. Never more will there be an internal or external colonialism which will be allowed to rule over the Bolivian people," Morales said.
Some 774 million people, roughly one out of five adults in the world, can still neither read nor write, according to UNESCO. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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