Cuban Literacy Campaign

The Cuban Literacy Campaign (Spanish: Campaña Nacional de Alfabetización en Cuba) was a year-long effort to abolish illiteracy in Cuba after the Cuban Revolution. It began on January 1 and ended on December 22, 1961, becoming the world's most ambitious and organized literacy campaign.

Before 1959 the official literacy rate for Cuba was between 60% and 76%, largely because of lack of education access in rural areas and a lack of instructors. As a result, the Cuban government of Fidel Castro at Che Guevara's behest dubbed 1961 the "year of education" and sent "literacy brigades" out into the countryside to construct schools, train new educators, and teach the predominantly illiterate guajiros (peasants) to read and write. The campaign was "a remarkable success." By its completion, 707,212 adults were taught to read and write, raising the national literacy rate to 96%.

In 2011, producer and director Catherine Murphy released the 33-minute documentary Maestra about the Cuban Literacy Campaign. The film includes interviews with volunteers who taught during the campaign and archival footage from 1961.

The dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown by an armed guerrilla movement known as the 26th of July Movement (Movimiento 26 de Julio) on January 1, 1959. The new revolutionary government, led by Fidel Castro, immediately began a series of social and economic reforms. Among these were agrarian reform, health care reform, and education reform, all of which dramatically improved the quality of life among the lowest sectors of Cuban society.

During the turmoil of the first several years of the revolution, the flight of many skilled workers caused a “brain drain.” This loss of human capital sparked a renovation of the Cuban education system to accommodate the instruction of new workers, who would take the place of those who had emigrated from the country.

In addition to the renewal of Cuba’s infrastructure, there were strong ideological reasons for education reform. In pre-Revolutionary Cuba, there was a dichotomy between urban citizens and rural citizens (who were often agricultural workers). The Cuban Revolution was driven by the need for equality, particularly among these classes. Before the campaign, the rate of illiteracy among city dwellers was 11%, compared to 41.7% in the countryside.

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Wikipedia