Cuba celebrates today the Day of the Educator, on the 61st anniversary of the successful completion of the first great educational feat of the Revolution: the Literacy Campaign.
The consecration of those professionals dedicated to the noble task of educating and teaching, as well as those who in their early youth contributed to that feat, is recognized in educational centers throughout the country, including pedagogical training centers.
The day before, directors of the Ministry of Higher Education received the José Tey Medal for their contributions to the formation of new generations of professionals and a work dedicated to this discipline.
This distinction recognizes the work and merits of educators of any level of education, with 25 years or more of performance in the sector, and also rewards workers of institutions and political, social and mass organizations, Cuban or foreign, relevant in the construction of Socialism.
On December 22, 1961, the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, proclaimed the country a territory free of illiteracy, after the battle for knowledge that involved some 271 thousand volunteer educators throughout the Cuban territory, and placed the country among the nations with the lowest rate of illiteracy in the world.
The Campaign allowed more than 700 thousand people to overcome ignorance, and created the basis for the creation of a universal and free Education System at all levels, which is a priority of the Cuban State.
We have won a great battle, said Fidel Castro on that occasion: "and we must call it that: battle, because the victory against illiteracy in our country has been achieved through a great battle, with all the rules of a great battle".
In effect, the early cultural endeavor was carried out in a context characterized by the growing hostility of the United States which, after the promulgation of the first revolutionary laws, tried to derail the process of transformations in the island by all the means at its disposal.
However, neither the rupture of relations of that northern power with Cuba in January 1961, nor the mercenary invasion of Playa Giron in April of that year, nor the fight against the bands of rebels in various parts of the country, stopped the Campaign.
The epic changed the lives of the hitherto illiterate, as well as their teachers and the country, and allowed the educational development experienced by the nation in later years with internationally recognized triumphs.