Learning Can Come at Any Age
In recent years, adult literacy has become a focal point for the Ministry of Education in El Salvador. Knowing how to read is incredibly important especially when it comes to independence and the ability to function within the modern world. Illiteracy is a serious issue in Central American countries, especially El Salvador, where many decades of social and political unrest has deprived the majority of the population, specifically women in rural areas, without an education. Simply put, adult literacy can be defined as, “the percentage of people ages 15 and above who can, with understanding, read and write a short, simple statement on their everyday life”. Currently, 88.5% of the Salvadoran population is literate. Male literacy rate is around 90.6% while the women literacy rate is only 86.7%. According to the Inter Press Service News Agency, “The Salvadoran government’s National Literacy Program has taught 200,000 people to read and write since 2009. That has brought the illiteracy rate among people over the age of 10 down from 17.9% in 2009 to 11.8% in 2013”.
On August 24th, we are so proud to announce that two of our scholarship recipients, Idalia Gomez and Myra Koreas, have assisted five women in obtaining a high level of literacy. Idalia and Myra continually contribute to the Literacy of Older Adults program powered by the Ministry of Education.
Nevertheless, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, a Salvadoran politician who served as the 45th President of El Salvador, implemented a National Literacy Program through his Ministry of Education. This program was assisted and designed with Cuban advisors, where high school students fulfilled their community service requirements by teaching reading, writing, and basic arithmetic to adults within their communities. This program has been very successful for at the close of 2018, over 330,000 people (the majority elderly women) had learned to read, write, and perform basic arithmetic.
We are so proud to have our students participating in this program! They are not only fostering relationships with community members, but sharing the life long skills they have learned in school!
