Cuba’s literacy program in Bolivia – Yes they can

Telesur and many other Latin American news outlets carried the news recently that Bolivia’s campaign to wipe out illiteracy has continued making huge strides. UNESCO now classes Bolivia an illiteracy free zone as it has a literacy rate of over 96%. The socialist government of Evo Morales has made wiping out illiteracy one of its major objectives and it has made major progress since 2001 when its illiteracy rate was 14%. Now its illiteracy rate stands at 3.6%. 800,000 people have been helped to literacy since 2007 with another 120,000 set to ‘graduate’ this year.

Part of the government’s success is credited to the use of a Cuban pioneered adult education methodology making extensive use of audio-visual techniques and called ‘Yes I can’. Like other socialist governments and socialist states, Cuba made the campaign to eradicate illiteracy and to raise educational standards an absolute priority. As Theodore MacDonald’s comprehensive study of Cuba’s education system has shown the revolutionary government immediately recognised that literacy is critical to waging the battle of ideas and devote huge economic and human resources into its literacy campaign. In 1961, just two years after the revolutionary government took power, UNESCO declared Cuba illiteracy free and it continues to recognise and promote the huge educational achievements of Cuban socialism in comparison with the rest of Latin America.

Now Cuba exports not just doctors to developing states but also adult education and the ‘Yes I can’ method. Quite a contrast to Britain and the US, where big education businesses export commodified access to educational materials and for-profit provision, and where universities trade their ‘brands’ for fees in the international student markets. Cuba’s educators have helped to raise educational standards and empower the people of Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia. They are even to be found working with the indigenous communities of Australia. That’s truly revolutionary international education.