-Robert Naiman
(in Washington DC for the summer, but back in the PhD program in economics at UIUC in the academic year)
--
Robert Naiman
Senior Policy Analyst
Venezuela Information Office
733 15th Street, NW Suite 932
Washington, DC 20005
t. 202-347-8081 x. 605
f. 202-347-8091
(*Please note new suite number and telephone*)
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The Venezuela Information Office is dedicated to informing the American public about contemporary Venezuela. More information is available from the FARA office of the Department of Justice in Washington, DC.
Envelope-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2004 12:01:14 -0700 (PDT)
From: Venezuela News & Action <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Venezuela News & Action <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Venezuela News & Action June 24, 2004
Dear Friends,
This July marks the first anniversary of Venezuela's educational missions. The achievements in the first year have been extraordinary: a volunteer force of 100,000 has established hundreds of clinics in remote regions and inner cities. In all, more than 1.2 million adults have been taught to read in the past year alone, and Venezuela is on track to eliminating illiteracy altogether.
ACTION ITEM: Educators across North America are invited to celebrate this success with the people of Venezuela. Here's how you can help:
* If you are a teacher, professor, faculty member, or other education professional, please sign on to the following letter by sending your NAME, TITLE, SCHOOL, CITY, and STATE to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
* Circulate this letter widely among education professionals
* Signers should respond by MONDAY, JULY 5th. More information on the missions is posted immediately under the sign-on letter.
********************************************** SIGN ON LETTER Aristobulo Isturiz, Minister of Education Edificio Sede Caracas 1010 Venezuela
Dear Dr. Isturiz:
As educators across North America, we recognize the achievements of the literacy programs in Venezuela, and join with you to celebrate the remarkable accomplishments of their first year.
The level of participation in these missions has been significant: one million people have already graduated from Mission Robinson's basic reading and writing clinics, one million more adults are working to obtain high-school diplomas through Mission Ribas, and an additional one hundred-thousand students participate in Mission Sucre's higher education program. More than 1.2 million adults have been taught to read in the past year alone, with the support of tens of thousands of volunteers.
Bringing education to the most remote regions of the country is critical to national development. Economic advancement, civic involvement, technological advances, political stability and participation in the world require that literacy is extended to all. We hope that the tremendous progress Venezuela has made toward the elimination of illiteracy will inspire others in the region.
On the first anniversary of the educational programs, we congratulate the people of Venezuela for your remarkable achievement.
Sincerely,
HUNDREDS OF NORTH AMERICAN TEACHERS PROFESSORS AND EDUCATIONAL PROFESSIONALS
********************************************** Background Information:
-VENEZUELA'S LITERACY TRIUMPH-
Venezuela has a history of discrimination in education. New social programs are eradicating past discrimination by providing equal access to educational opportunities even for the poorest and most isolated citizens. With more than 1.2 million adults taught to read in the last year, Venezuela is creating the conditions that will allow all citizens to participate in the democratic process for the first time.
ILLITERACY & EDUCATIONAL DISCRIMINATION
Last summer, the Venezuelan government launched a series of sweeping educational initiatives to combat the learning gap that had historically plagued the nation's poor. Establishing thousands of local, volunteer-based schools in rural communities and urban slums across the Caribbean nation, the initiatives have made remarkable progress.
This July, Venezuela and educators from around the world will celebrate the 1.2 million adults who have been taught to read in the first year of these programs. The country is now on track to achieve a near-complete elimination of illiteracy.
THE EDUCATION GAP
Just ten years ago, Venezuela's illiteracy rate was nearly 9%, or about 2 million people, primarily in rural Indigenous communities and poor inner-city families. Under previous governments, students had been required to pay fees to attend public schools, which in practice excluded the most needy from receiving basic education. The most remote parts of the country had no schools at all, and government spending on public schools declined steadily throughout the 1990s. Although the country enjoyed immense oil wealth, the government in alliance with the elites made little effort to eradicate this plague of illiteracy and educational discrimination.
VENEZUELANS VOTE FOR CHANGE
By 1998, Venezuelans had grown tired of their government ignoring their basic needs. They turned to the ballot box and elected Hugo Chavez Frías, a leader with a mandate to increase opportunities for the country's poor, focusing on education, health care and land reform. The government quickly eliminated fees for public schools. They codified the right to education into a brand new Constitution, which was approved in by over 87% of the electorate. Under the new Constitution, Hugo Chavez was again elected to the Presidency with almost 60% of the popular vote -- a huge vote of confidence for the new Constitution and the social programs addressing the needs of the country's majority poor population
SCHOOL BOOM UNDER THE CHAVEZ ADMINISTRATION
To meet the demand for primary education, Venezuelan leaders deployed the military to an ambitious school construction project in 2000. Within four years, more than 3000 new schools had been built. School attendance at all levels had jumped 25% by 2002, representing approximately 1.3 million students who had previously been left out of the system. During a 2001 visit to Venezuela, The Director General of the United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Koichiro Matsuura, lauded Venezuela's education initiatives as well as its increase in education spending to 6 percent of GDP--far above the 3.9 percent average in developing countries.
Still, geographic and economic barriers remained, particularly in regions where traditional school districts were not feasible. The country has recently found success in a novel series of government-sponsored "missions" to reach underserved regions. The educational missions are each named after prominent figures in Venezuelan history, and weave lessons of history and civic responsibility together with reading and mathematical skills.
MISSION ROBINSON: LITERACY FOR EVERYONE
Mission Robinson is named after Simon Rodriguez, a private tutor to Latin American liberator Simon Bolívar who often traveled under the pseudonym Samuel Robinson. The most significant campaign in Venezuela's battle against illiteracy, Mission Robinson was established in July 2003.
Today, some 100,000 educated volunteers spend evenings teaching basic reading, writing and math skills to adults in small night classes around the country. The key has been to establish night schools in virtually every corner of the nation, making them accessible to adults with families and full-time jobs. Venezuela's state universities try to instill a renewed sense of community responsibility among their students and alumni, and college students make up the majority of mission volunteers. In its first year, more than 1 million people have graduated from Mission Robinson programs. Literacy graduates then have the opportunity to continue on to earn an elementary school equivalency with two more years of classes.
MISSION RIBAS: BACK TO HIGH SCHOOL
Adults who have dropped out of high school can obtain a diploma through an expedited program named after Jose Felix Ribas, a philosophical and military leader of Venezuelan Independence. Mission Ribas, which teaches mathematics, geography, advanced grammar, and English as a second language, may be completed within two years, about half the time of a standard high school program.
Like all of Venezuela's educational missions, the programs at Ribas are free, but the government has set aside grants for 100,000 participants to be compensated for time that could otherwise be spent working.
Graduates of Mission Ribas are offered assistance in job-hunting as well. About 1.4 million people are currently enrolled in the program.
MISSION SUCRE: ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION
Named after independence hero General Antonio Jose de Sucre, Mission Sucre acts essentially as a scholarship program for higher education. Need-based grants are given out to 100,000 Venezuelans each year to offset the costs of state universities, and will open the doors of higher education to bright students who would have been financially barred from universities in the past. They have also founded a brand-new Bolivarian University of Venezuela, the UBV, in an unused building that was the former headquarters of the national oil company.
As one sixty-year-old housewife, a participant in Mission Robinson, remarked, "I feel as though my President has personally called on me to come to school, because we have a participatory democracy in Venezuela, and to participate, I should learn to read and write. I have completed Mission Robinson, and hope to graduate and move through Mission Ribas. And who knows, maybe someday I'll go to Mission Sucre and get a chance to go to college."
For more information on literacy in Venezuela, contact the Venezuelan Information Office [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Venezuela Information Office
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NOTE: The Venezuela Information Office is dedicated to informing the American public about contemporary Venezuela, and receives its funding from the government of Venezuela. More information is available from the FARA office of the Department of Justice in Washington DC.
