The Ministry of Education of the Dominican Republic has received 3,800 applications from potential volunteers hoping to participate in the literacy programme announced by President Danilo Medina on 10th September.
The National Literacy Plan, also known as “Quisqueya Learns With You,” declares literacy a fundamental human right for people over 14 years old, and hopes to eliminate illiteracy in the Dominican Republic, which currently stands at a rate of 9.7% (the official statistic according to the Central Bank’s National Labour Force Survey).
The consistency of this illiteracy rate over the last 30 years, according to Minister of Education Josefina Pimentel, “shows that despite many efforts, we still have not overcome as a society this social and ethical debt that we owe to 700,000 people”.
At the ceremony to announce the initiative, Medina called for at least 25,000 volunteers from social, religious, and university backgrounds that have experience in the field of literacy. So far, 3,800 have registered for the programme, which will begin on 7th January 2013 and aims to reach 725,000 Dominicans, 45.5% of whom live in urban areas and 54.5% of whom live in rural areas.
“There is nothing more liberating than when people have the opportunity to access the written word, the knowledge accumulated by humanity and the history of their own communities and people”, Medina said.
The Caribbean island nation hopes to be rid of illiteracy entirely by 8th September 2014, to coincide with World Literacy Day. Neighbouring Cuba leads the region with a literacy rate of about 99.8% according to the CIA World Factbook, a result of the Cuban Literacy Campaign implemented in 1961.
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