On August 22nd 2009, the 29th anniversary of the end of the historic National Literacy Cruzade, Education Minister Miguel de Castilla presented a ministerial placard to President Daniel Ortega declaring Nicaragua as territory free of illiteracy. Nicaragua is now officially the fifth country in Latin America to be declared free of illiteracy along with Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Costa Rica.

At the end of June a delegation of experts from UNESCO visited the country to verify the governent's claim that, as a result of the two year long National Literacy Campaign, the percentage of illiterates in Nicaragua had fallen below 5%. The delegation was indeed able to confirm that, Nicaragua had an illiteracy rate of 4.1%. The literacy campaign continues, however, and by August 15th the rate had fallen to 3.46, according to Minister Miguel de Castilla.

"On August 22nd, the day Nicaragua was declared free of illiteracy, educators were working, teaching people to read and write," said minister de Castilla in an interview with Alberto Mora. "Our aim is to have reduced the percentage of illiterates to 3% by November 7th. If we achieve that we would have one of the lowest rates of illiteracy in Latin America together with Cuba. We would have less illiteracy than Costa Rica."    

"It is impossible to imagine even a minimum level of development in a country full of illiterates. By declaring the nation free of illiteracy, our government has laid the foundations for the future of education in our country. But this is only the first step, the first rung on a very tall ladder." 

Ten Year Plan: that all Nicaraguans graduate from secondary school

"We are by no means satisfied with what has been done so far. All we have done is to tackle the first obstacle. The tasks facing us now are enormous - we must overcome the chasms created by bad quality education, by illiteracy and by former government's total disregard for education. Overcoming all that is going to be an immense challenge," said de Castilla

Currently the Ministry of Education is coordinating a nationwide consultation process involving all the people who took part in the national literacy campaign, either as teachers or as pupils, as well as education authorities and specialists from diverse institutions and organizations in order to create the nation's Ten Year Education Plan: 2011 - 2021.

The fundamental aim of this plan is that all those who learned to read and write during the literacy campaign will have completed primary school by 2015 and secondary school by 2021. The nationwide consultations process aims to determine the specifics and logistics of how this mammoth task will be carried out.  

As Minister de Castilla points out "foreign cooperation organizations often order this type of medium term education development plan to be carried out as part of the process of rationalizing the use of cooperation funds and resources. The difference is that, when a foreign organization oversees the plan it is consulted with academics. After the academics have given it the go ahead the government adopts the plan. But in Nicaragua ordinary people, the ones who will take part in the education process, are the ones who are creating the ten year plan."

Primary education is the long term answer

De Castilla is the first to admit that literacy campaigns "are not the cure to the social disease called illiteracy. The real cure is quality primary education." For that reason "our most important work is about ensuring quality primary education for impoverished children and young people."

On this subject (the government's policy on primary school education) Tortilla con Sal was able to talk about the reality on the ground in the municipality of Estelí with Melania Peralta Ramírez, Ministry of Education Delegate for the municipality of Estelí, and Lucía Nubia Centeno Castro, Director of the Rubén Darío Primary School in the town of Estelí. 

Delegate Melania Peralta was able to confirm that the number of students registered in public schools (preschool, primary and secondary) across the municipality has experienced an "incredible" increase since 2007 when the FSLN government re-nationalized the education system eliminating charges in public schools. 

Director Nubia Centeno explains the logic behind the influx of pupils into the public education system since 2007: "In this school we have pupils whose parents work as shoe shiners, tortilla makers, building assistants, market vendors and factory workers. It is not possible to expect these parents, with what they earn, to be able to keep a family and still have enough to pay for their children's education."

As well as the increase in the number of pupils attending school, the desertion rate has dropped to a record 8% in the municipality. Peralta and Centeno put this down to, among other things, the fact that all primary school pupils, in the countryside and in the towns, recieve a free school meal everyday.

The school meals program has also helped to stimulate academic achievement. Last year Estelí schools averaged an 85% pass rate - a record for the municipality. "It's a very different thing trying to teach something to a hungry child than it is to a child with a full tummy," says Centeno.

Education budget has not been limited despite economic crisis

Incredibly, despite the impact of the international economic crisis, the government has not limited resources destined to key parts of its education policy like the provision of school uniforms, rucksacks and shoes for the most impoverished students, classroom learning materials and school meals, assured Peralta. Nor, she said, have the municipal authorities needed to dismiss any teachers or other workers, although they have not been able to take on new members of staff.

"Despite the international crisis, it is during this administration when the basic conditions and materials have been provided for our schools," says Peralta. "Today teachers have all the material necessary to carry out classes - paper, pens, books, etc.. On top of that they take part in monthly teaching training workshops."

Another important aspect of the government's education policy that has provoked positive change in the classroom in the new curriculum and the monthly teacher training workshops known as TEPCEs (Planning, Evaluation, Education Training Workshops).

Director Centeno believes the teachers at Rubén Darío have acquired a greater ability to analyze and plan their teaching thanks to the TEPCE teacher training regime. "What happenes at the monthly TEPCE workshops is that all the teachers get together to self-train themselves, exchanging ideas and classroom experiences. We look at what we have achieved and analyze what we can do to improve our work."

The importance of the new curriculum is based on the fact that it is more pupil orientated, says Centeno. The new curriculum "encourages pupils to participate in class because evaluation is not based on exams - children are permanently evaluated, everyday. This encourages pupils to take responsibility for their attendance and involve themselves in class activity," explains Centeno.