In 1959 a popular liberation struggle overthrew the hated
US-backed Batista dictatorship in Cuba. A country where the vast majority of people were improverished and underemployed, began a 40 year transformation that has completely changed their lives. Today Cuba has:
* a widely respected, free education service which has raised Cuban educational standards to the highest in Latin American (UNESCO, 1998).
* education for all. The percentage of children at school jumped from 50% to 80% between 1959 and 1962. Today all children attend school and are guaranteed a minimum ninth grade education.
* pre school education for the children of working mothers. 90% of pre school children attend nursery education and the percentage continues to rise.
* comprehensive higher education. Today every province has its own university, while before the revolution there were only three.
* special needs education for all who need it, either in special or mainstream schools. This is unique in the Third World. The staffing ratio is much higher than in Britain.
* eliminated illiteracy (endorsed by UNESCO statistics). This is a national priority. Illiteracy plummeted during the Great Literacy Campaign of 1960/1961 and has continued to fall, while in the United States it stands at 12%.
* a well developed infrastructure of public, academic, and special libraries.
* over 300 public libraries, which possess over 7 million titles, nearly 6 million of them books. Public libraries are used by 5.9 million people, borrowing 8 million books per year.
* over 300 book shops.
* nine publishing houses which produce over 2,000 per year, with a total print run of more than 45 million copies, equivalent to more than 20 titles per 100,000 inhabitants.
For more information about the Cuban Libraries Support Group, contact John Pateman at johnpateman9@hotmail.com
John Pateman is a member of the Society of Chief Librarians and has visited Cuban libraries in 1993, 1995, and 1999, 2000, and 2003.
Last updated 7/2003, © 2000 Cuban Libraries Support Group
Please send comments, questions, and corrections regarding this website to the Cuban Libraries Support Group.