Today, December 22, the main act commemorating the completion of the “National Literacy Campaign,” announced on this date in 1961, will be held at the emblematic Ciudad Escolar Libertad’s Pedagogical Scientific Complex.
The site, formerly the Columbia military camp before the triumph of the Revolution in January, 1959, will see students from different levels of education pay tribute to teachers and commemorate one of the most important events in the country’s history.
On December 22, 1961, after almost two years of arduous work by brigades of trained volunteers ranging from seven to 19 years of age, then Prime Minister, Fidel Castro, speaking in the capital’s Plaza de la Revolución José Martí, declared Cuba a illiteracy-free territory.
As a symbol of the island’s education system, the Ciudad Escolar Libertad was officially inaugurated on September 14, 1959, by the eternal Comandante en Jefe.
Today, this Pedagogical Scientific Complex has two kindergartens; a multi-age preschool; six elementary, and three middle schools; as well as a pre-university and polytech high school.
The site also houses a special school for blind and visually impaired children, another for students with learning difficulties, as well as a vocational arts institute and the University of Pedagogical Sciences.
(Granma)