Susan Price & Margarita Windisch, Caracas
Venezuelans celebrated across the country on October 28 to mark the official declaration that the Bolivarian republic has now become officially free of illiteracy. The day also marked the birthday of Simon Rodriguez, educator and teacher of national hero Simon Bolivar.
More than 1.48 million previously illiterate Venezuelans have benefited from Mission Robinson, which mobilised nearly 129,000 instructors, utilising the "Yes I can" teaching method developed in Cuba. The program, organised by the Hugo Chavez government was originally piloted in the Venezuelan city of Maracay in 2003. According to a report in Panorama on October 29, in a speech at the Teresa Carreno Theatre in Caracas, Chavez stated that the success of the program represented a "miracle" and acknowledged that "without Cuba, Mission Robinson would not have been possible".
Cuba donated more than 89,000 televisions and 80,000 VCRs to the program, along with extensive teaching and learning resources. Venezuela now has plans to assist with literacy campaigns in the Dominican Republic and Bolivia.
In the week prior to the announcement there was much media discussion on the issue of education. On the October 23 edition of Chavez's weekly TV show Alo Presidente, he told the audience, gathered at the newly reopened Gran Colombia integrated school, that "Education is a fundamental pillar in the construction of the socialism of the 21st century". Gran Colombia, which was built in the 1940s, suffered serious physical degradation due to the lack of infrastructure and maintenance spending of previous governments. Thanks to a $A10 million funding injection and a construction program completed over several months, the school underwent a massive refurbishment.
As an integrated school, Gran Colombia comprises kindergarten (Simonsitas), primary and secondary school, and technical and vocational education, and includes special education for students with disabilities. It also offers a program of education for parents, including for women during pregnancy. Meals are provided for the students free of charge.
To accelerate the refurbishment of Venezuela's schools and colleges and to develop new projects for integrated schooling, Chavez announced a plan to locate sites for similar developments across the country. The First International Robinsonian Congress of Pedagogy was also held in Caracas on October 27-28. The congress was opened by education minister Aristobulo Isturiz, along with the Cuban minister of education Luis Ignacio Gomez and the rector of the Simon Rodriguez University.
The conference was attended by hundreds of teachers and educationalists from across the continent, including Argentinian academic and author Adriana Puigros, who recently completed a book entitled From Simon Rodriguez to Paulo Freire: Education for Latin American Integration. The conference covered five workshop areas, including the questions of education, national sovereignty and land rights; society in the Americas; socialism of the 21st century, the Bolivarian education system and the educational missions.
[For daily news updates from Venezuela visit <http://www.venezuelanalysis.com>.]
From Green Left Weekly, November 9, 2005.
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