Participants of Cuban Literacy Campaign, 1961

Havana, December 22 (RHC)-- Cuba celebrates Tuesday Teacher's Day and remembers the closing of the campaign that in 1961 made the country the first territory free of illiteracy in the Latin American region.

According to official investigations, more than 100 thousand students summoned by the Cuban revolution leader, Fidel Castro, participated in the literacy drive that began on January 1 of that same year.

Later, 14,000 workers and 34 772 volunteer teachers joined the movement, concentrating their work in rural areas. 

The campaign marked the nation's subsequent development, where there were 979,200 illiterates in 1961, and more than 800,000 children between the ages of five and 15 did not attend school before the revolutionary triumph.

As a result, some 707,200 illiterates learned to read and write, reducing the illiteracy rate to 3.9 percent, and providing free and universal access to the different levels of education.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) described this initiative as a pioneering example of the agency's values for the Education Agenda 2030.

The event, without precedent in Latin America and the Caribbean,  was the starting point for the remarkable educational advances achieved by the country,' the Cuban National Commission for UNESCO recently acknowledged on its Facebook social network account.

On December 22, 1961, at the Revolution Square in Havana, Fidel Castro announced the end of the Literacy Campaign and Cuba was proclaimed an illiteracy-free territory.