Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Managua (Agenzia Fides) - The new school year for one million and 600 thousand students, from kindergarten to higher education has just started in Nicaragua. The high turnout is due to free access to education proposed by the present government as a strategy to combat poverty in the country. Since 2007, the State has established free tuition, but without the contemporary implementation of social programs the integration of the vast number of students would have been impossible. Programs like "Zero Hunger", where more than 100 000 women benefited from, allowed many families to have at their disposal animals and contributions for the production and sale of food, helping children and young people who often do not go to school because they need to work in the fields with their parents. In fact, in a family with limited economic resources an issue on which child to send to school and which one to send to work is created.
Already in 1979 there was a big national campaign against illiteracy, which reduced the number of illiterates by 60% to 12.5%, but since 1990 the program was put aside. During the inauguration of the school year, in a note from the coordinator of the Council for Communications says that the country needs a better education to combat poverty and to build a model of Christian development and solidarity. "Education to create material wealth and spiritual well-being to promote fairness, justice, unity and understanding", she said. In his speech, Cardinal Miguel Obando Bravo, Archbishop Emeritus of Managua, enhanced the government's commitment in favor of education, emphasizing that education is the most important resource that a human being can acquire in his/her life, which is essential for national development and formative element for autonomy, justice and social solidarity. (AP) (Agenzia Fides 14/2/2012)
