Thousands of new classrooms, especially in rural areas were opened but teachers were needed for an enrollment of over one million students. The call of Fidel, Cuba became a huge voluntarily school where they taught others about.
Just a year and a half later, on December 22, 1961, the leader of the Revolution proclaimed the victory over ignorance. “We have won a great battle and we must call it: battle for victory against illiteracy in our country has been achieved through a great battle,” Fidel announced that day.
Instructing and educating
If today the country is proudly supported by more than a million graduates of higher level and if the average schooling reaches nine degrees, is the result of a persistent and undeniable political will.
But little could be done without a hotbed of teachers who live in the wake of Varela, Knight, Light, Martí, or Varona, a tradition that is also part of the recently defunct Relys Leonela, creator of the literacy method Yo si I can, now used on all four corners of the world.
Heirs of those precursors for the daily work noes teachers only instruct but also educate, a task that cannot dent or material shortages, and the needs of everyday life, for in their hands lies the future of the nation.
Translated by: Daysi Olano Fernandez
