Lliteracy method praised at education congress
Campaign News | Tuesday, 27 January 2009
Participants at the Pedagogía 2009 International Education Congress, running from January 26th till the 30th at Havana’s Convention Center, praised the favourable results the Cuban literacy method “Yes I can” has had wherever implemented.
The teaching method, used in some 30 countries, with over 3 million being taught by it, was created by Cuban specialists, using a combination of numbers and letters, on a 65-class video platform that helps the illiterate person to learn how to read and write.
Other countries have expressed their interest in this method because it helps the student to understand and contribute to the society in which
he lives. Another advantage is the flexibility of the schedules and places to teach, since it only requires a TV set and a video player.
This program has also been translated into indigenous languages like miskita, mayangna, guaraní and others.
The Cuban Minister of Education Ena Elsa Velazquez, at the opening ceremony of Pedagogia 2009, highlighted the feat achieved in Venezuela
and Bolivia of eradicating illiteracy using this method, a “decisive battle for human uplifting”
Her Venezuelan counterpart, Hector Navarro, told Prensa Latina news agency in Caracas that the exchange on this method during the congress
will enhance its teaching qualities.
Both countries received UNESCO’s King Sejong award for helping Bolivia eradicate the scourge. UNESCO’s Director-General Koichiro Matsuura visited Havana last January 19 where he acknowledged educational system advances of Cuba.
The Educators Congress in Cuba
Some 44 countries are represented at the pedagogical event, which every two years makes Cuba the center of Latin American education.
According to Cuba’s Education First deputy Minister, Francisco Ferreira,over 3,100 educators, mainly from Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico, Bolivia and Brazil are attending the congress, where teacher training, illiteracy campaigns and their follow-up courses will be the main topics to be discussed.
On this regard, Ferreira highlighted that 2,700 papers, for discussion, show the scientific maturity of the 23-year-old event.
The Venezuelan delegation will participates with 69 of them at a parallel event on family, woman and education from a genre perspective, a hot
issue during the last few years, added Ferreira, and announced the attendance of 14 education Ministers and the general secretaries of the
Ibero-American Organization for Science and Culture and the Ibero-American Educative Television association.
Justo Chavez, head of the Central Institute of Pedagogical Sciences, expressed his expectations about this congress to help create a unifying philosophy on this matter, whose theoretical path is still undefined.
“Latin American pedagogy needs to find its way back, because it is only through education that man can be up to his challenges”, pointed out Chavez.
Meanwhile other meetings will take place between education unions, university rectors and foreign students graduated in Cuba.
Also, many visitors will have a first hand experience of Cuban education, whose half a century long achievements are considered an
international paradigm.
