The Invisible Problem, by Ruth Anastacio

In the years that I have been working I have implemented several education projects. However, I never focused on adult education beyond the workshops we do in communities to change eating habits in families or improve productive practices. I ignored that our efforts to have the best content, presented in presentations or manuals with more texts than illustrations, would not be understood by those who never went to school. Illiteracy was never a barrier. But not because we knew how to handle it, but because it was a problem that we prefer to ignore.

According to the Ministry of Education, currently, only 4 out of 10 students finish high school. People who did not go to school or only studied a few years are almost 30% of our population. The efforts of the Ministry of Education embodied in the 845 centres for adult education are insignificant, considering that there is 9.6 million Peruvians who demand this attention.

In the last census, INEI reported that 1,335,106 people over 15 years of age cannot read or write. This figure, however, only refers to the absolute illiterates, without considering the functional illiterates: those people who did a few years of primary school and who over the years forgot what they learned.

Illiteracy in Peru is a problem that we have made invisible. Although there are hundreds of more urgent problems to solve, the focus should be on the Education sector, considering the conditions most schools find themselves in. Even so, more is invested in future generations and the present is ignored. Just look at the institutional plans of regional governments or any planning instrument of public institutions and it shows that there is no activity or investment that alludes to the education of the adult population.

But why does literacy not intensify? Incredibly, according to the response of the sector, it is due to lack of demand. However, the vast majority of centres for adult education are located in the headwaters of districts, making them inaccessible to the rural population or impossible to combine with the family or work dynamics of adults for the amount of classroom hours required.

Taking information from the Statistical portal of Educational Quality (Escale), there are 625 Centres of adult education of public management, at national level, that provide the service in the initial and intermediate cycles (equivalent to the primary level of regular basic education). They have 1,672 teachers and serve 28,261 people. In the 24 departments, according to the 2017 census, there are about 1.4 million illiterate Peruvians. This figure shows that the effort of the sector only reaches 2% of the population that demands education.

What is being done for this large part of the human capital that moves, in the present, the economy and development of our nation? If illiteracy continues to be invisible, we are denying development to a large part of our compatriots. The Country Vision to 2050, announced by the president, where it is sought that we all reach our full potential, will be impossible if we do not invest in generating solutions to educate adults from now on, beginning by assuring them the right to learn to read and write.