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ECUADOR`S MINISTER OF EDUCATION RESPONSETO ROSA MARIA TORRESDear members of the Forum of Ecuador’s Ex Ministers of Education:Rosa María Torres (RMT) has expressed some personal concerns about the governmentdeclaring Ecuador a “Literate Country” this past September 8
th
. In sum, RMT states thefollowing in her public letter: (a) that the Ministry of Education acted without enoughevidence when it declared Ecuador a literate country (supposedly with the “approval of the UNESCO Office in Quito”), and should have waited for the analysis of the homesurveys results; and (b) that the projection of illiteracy included in the report
 Laalfabetización en el Ecuador: Evolución histórica, información actualizada y mapanacional de analfabetismo, 2009
(“Literacy in Ecuador: Historic Evolution, UpdatedInformation and National Illiteracy Map, 2009”), prepared by Juan Ponce and MercedesOnofa at the request of UNESCO and published by the Ministry of Education, is,according to her, unreliable because it labels people as “literate” only because they haveregistered and completed the program, without an evaluation to verify what theyactually learned.Regarding her claims, I would like to clarify the following:
1.
As stated in the introduction of the report
 Literacy in Ecuador 
, when theEcuadorean government decided to launch the Manuela Saenz Literacy Program in2007, it announced the commitment to reduce the illiteracy rate to less than 4% byAugust 2009. In order to achieve this goal, the Ministry of Education made animportant effort –mainly during 2008 and 2009- thanks to which approximately420.000 people all over the country attended literacy programs. In addition to that, itis necessary to highlight the efforts of the local governments, which also participated of this endeavor to reduce illiteracy rates by applying the international“Yes, I Can” program. Since the “quality of life” surveys conducted by the NationalInstitute for Statistics and Census will only be ready by the end of this year, it wasnot possible to use them to verify the goals of the literacy campaign. Therefore, theonly way of tentatively measuring the impact of the vast efforts of the literacycampaign in the past few years was through a projection, such as the one we used.At the moment, this is the only data that we have available and it is reliable in thesense that those responsible for this program have kept a careful record of the people who participated in the program.
2.
It is pertinent to point out that the Ministry of Education used its own resources tomake the declaration of Ecuador as a literate country, without the approval of anyother institution. Contrary to what RMT claims, the UNESCO Regional Office inQuito did not give its approval to this declaration simply because UNESCO does notmake statements about illiteracy rates, and it does not certify such declarations made
 
 by any government, which is something that RMT knows very well. In this case, theUNESCO Regional Office in Quito co-sponsored a research project that aimed atmaking a reasonable projection of the condition of illiteracy in Ecuador. TheMinistry of Education has given an undeniable proof of transparency by publishingthis report, from which RMT collects information and chooses to read it her ownway. In this context, I would like to emphasize that we were the first ones to pointout the limitations that the figures of the literacy campaign may have from anacademic point of view. RMT points this out, and emphasizes it as if it were theonly thing worth paying attention to. In regards to the reliability of the treatment of the figures, RMT knows me and surely she is aware of the fact that my approach isas meticulous and serious as it was when I directed the literacy campaign“Monseñor Leonidas Proaño” in 1988-1989, under the leadership of Alfredo Vera,who was Minister of Education at the time. RMT also worked in this literacycampaign as the director of pedagogy. It would seem as if when it comes to judgingthe program, for RMT the 160.000 students that had a life-altering experiencethrough their participation in it, or the 11.000 literacy instructors that went all theway to inaccessible areas, simply never existed.
3.
Finally, there is RMT’s concern about why is it “assumed that all those who register and perhaps complete a program are literate, without an evaluation to prove that thisis actually true.” I simply have to say that this concern is out of place because thestudy itself already recognizes this limitation, and it does so clearly. In fact, alleconomically feasible means of measuring illiteracy rates, anywhere the world, havelimitations. So, for example, surveys or even population censuses have adisadvantage when it comes to measuring illiteracy rates, because they are simply based on the self-declarations given by the people being surveyed or censused. Thisonly means that the information offered by this projection is tentative, and it has to be confirmed by future measurements, such as “quality of life” surveys and population censuses. Because facts speak louder than words, we continue to work on the national program of basic education for youth and adults.Something that RMT does not mention, and it is appropriate to point it out here, is thatthe Ministry of Education does not consider basic literacy to be the final goal for adultsand youth in need of these programs. On the contrary, we believe that this is only thefirst of the many steps in the permanent growth and continuous improvement of thecitizens' level of education. In fact, in the following months we will continue to work with the purpose of reducing the already low illiteracy rate even more. By 2012 wewould like to have reached a new goal: to provide education to the adults who havealready completed the literacy program, in order for them to reach a stage of educationequivalent to least the general basic education level.Through this message, I would like to encourage the members of this Forum, as well asall those who are interested in reaching our shared educational goals, to pool your efforts and support our work based on the Ten Year Educational Plan, which was
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