based on Tisinhua reports
At the University of Havana on December 23rd, Amando Hart, the Cuban Minister for Education, emphasised the themendous progress that ‘has been made in education in the 5 years since the Revolution, In 1953, 23% of the Cuban populetion was illiterate (41.7% in rural areas); in 1962, a year after the beginning of a nation-wide literacy campaign, which involved 180,000 -teachers, students, workers the illiteracy rate has falien to "30, most of whom are oid or ill.
In the past 2 years, 416,000 workers and peasants have enrolled for special courses at eithor primary or secondary school levels, Now + that a nation-wide network of schools has been established, the numbor of primary school students has increased from 580, 000 to 1,270,000, and the number of secondary school students from 27,000 to 125,000, and 100,000 students from workers and peasants families are receiving govermment grants.
Hart said that Cuba had also set up a number of technical schools specialising in agriculture, fishery, water conservancy, and other subjects, where the policy of combining education with productive labour was followed, Agricultural schools were. set up in farms, fishery schools had their own fishing fleets, and engineering schools had their own workshops or factories, -Certain technical schools, normal schools’ and art schools had been enlarged and the number of students increased.