The three Rs: How Bolivia combats illiteracy

[JAMMY]

 

 

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"Reading and writing were forbidden," says Quintim Pulma, 83.

Mr Pulma, a former policeman dressed elegantly in a slightly worn jacket and wearing a black hat, recalls the days when he was growing up in rural Bolivia: "I lived at the farm at which my parents worked and the owner threatened that if I went to school, he'd cut my tongue out."

But now things are different for Mr Pulma.

"These days, I can study and prove to people that I'm capable of doing anything," he says.

Mr Pulma is one of 39 elderly students in a literacy group in El Alto, Bolivia's second largest city.

Their group is part of the "Yes, I can" adult literacy campaign which was launched in Bolivia 10 years ago.

Most of the students are women over the age of 50 from a poor, rural background.

Officials say that it is thanks to the "Yes, I can" programme that illiteracy rates dropped from 13.28% in 2001 to 3.8% in 2014, when the last census was conducted.

This means that Bolivia is now among the countries considered to have eradicated illiteracy by Unesco's standards, which requires countries to maintain a rate of illiteracy of below 4%.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-37117243