Panama's government to boost literacy with Cuban teaching method

The Cuban Yes I Can teaching method of literacy reached 77,230 illiterates, 13 years after its implementation within 'Muevete por Panama' (Move around Panama) program, and the government plans to currently strengthen it, local press informed here.

On a meeting between Panama's Minister of Social Development (MIDES), Maria Ines Castillo, and the Cuban ambassador to that nation, Lydia Margarita Gonzalez, they reviewed the work of Cuban advisers who remain in several areas, including remote regions of Panama.

'We met with the Cuban Embassy with the aim to strengthening cooperation ties, as well as talking about the advancement and future of the literacy program,' Castillo tweeted.

A report presented by MIDES at the meeting includes the projection of raising the literate to 5,000 per year by 2024, to ensure that by the end of the current decade 'all youngsters and a considerable proportion of adults are literate and with them contribute to end poverty.'

The program, which has been active for five administrations, currently has 146 classrooms, where 682 students attend, about half of them are older adults, 67 percent women and 35 percent of those enrolled belong to some indigenous ethnicity, according to the source.