Romero and the literacy campaign

We had a short talk by Romero last night.  He is 64 years old and recently retired as an electrical engineer.  Hi wife is a chemist and will have mandatory retirement in 6 months at age 60.  Their pension per month comes to about 13 CUCs.  This is the government’s plan to provide jobs for young people.  Romero was 12 years old in 1961 shortly after the revolution. Out of the 6 million Cubans at that time, only 1 million were literate.  Castro had an ambitious plan to make all of Cuba literate in one year.  To accomplish this, young people of 12-15 were sent to a 2 week training program to teach people to read and write.  Romero was sent to a mountainvillage about 600 miles from his home and was given 4 people to spend the next 9 months living in their home, helping with the farm labor and teaching them to read and write after farm chores were done.  He was successful as were most of the young people and at the end of the year, 99% of Cuba was literate.  That high literacy rate has been maintained over the last 50 years.  Schooling continues to be free—from kindergarten thru college.  Each of the 15 provinces has a medical school which is free also.  There are exams, but if you can get in, the cost of your education is paid.