Nicaragua Targets Illiteracy

Nicaragua’s leftist government is linking a new literacy campaign to July’s 30th anniversary of the overthrow the Somoza dynasty.

The program is a repeat performance for President Daniel Ortega, who led the country after Sandinista guerrillas toppled the Somoza family dictatorship in 1979.

According to Inter Press Service, a left-leaning news source, the National Literacy Campaign in 1980 reduced illiteracy in the country from 52 to just below 13 percent, before succumbing to further civil war and ongoing political conflict.

Now, the government hopes to meet UNESCO standards of under five percent illiteracy in the next few months.

Nicaraguan government statistics showed more than half a million citizens, out of a population of 5.3 million, were illiterate in 2005.

Source:

“Nicaragua: Literacy Campaign Changing Women’s Lives”
Inter Press Service, April 27, 2009

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