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A group of young people from Spain will travel to the rain forest of Nicaragua in July to bring eyeglasses to 300 natives suffering from “serious vision problems.”

The Almudi Association, whose members are involved in the outreach, told the AVAN news agency that for many of the natives, “This will be their first pair of glasses that they have ever received,” and poor eyesight is a hindrance for many natives who work in the fields.

Last summer a group of students traveled to Nicaragua to measure the eyesight of the natives they would be helping. In the year since then, glasses have been manufactured by the company Visionlab and now relief is on the way.

While there the volunteers will also help out at a local parish with catechism, formation classes and Bible studies.  Likewise they will hand out medical supplies, organize sporting games and music festivals.

The Almudi Association of Valencia, run by priests of the Opus Dei, has organized visits to Nicaragua since 2000.

At the end of last year, 12 young students sat at their desks at the modest El Zamora pre-school near Granada. They were all dressed in similar white shirts, with the boys wearing blue pants and the girls in blue skirts.

Today, the number of students has jumped to 30, with a mixture of plainclothed children sitting in the classroom alongside those dressed in traditional school uniforms.

The more than doubling in class enrollment, educators say, happened virtually overnight and was made possible by one thing: more parents can now afford to send their children to school under the Sandinista government’s new education plan.

“I don’t know of any other reason for the increase,” said Pauline Jackson of La Esperanza, a private charity in Granada that sends volunteers to help with understaffed classrooms.

As part of the government’s new national education plan, the administration of President Daniel Ortega has done away with the small monthly fees that families had to pay to send their children to pre-school and elementary school. They also relaxed the dress code for those whose budget is stretched too thin to buy the standard blue-and-white uniforms.

Several thousand government workers whose job it was to collected school fees were told to find other work, and teachers in both urban and rural schools are reporting an increase in student enrollment.

The new education policy has created its own type of problems for an education system that had nearly 1 million children not attending school.

The Ministry of Education says the recent increase in students has created a need for 2,000 new classrooms and 4,000 extra teachers. Makeshift schools have been set up in churches and private homes, while unruly class sizes have become more and more the norm.

Nicaraguan teachers, already the lowest paid in Central America, threatened to go on a nationwide strike earlier this year.

A teachers’ protest that included seven teachers declaring a hunger strike last May ended with the government agreeing to some basic salary demands (NT, May 11).

But many educators claim they are still unable to make ends meet on their meager salaries.

Despite the budget problems, after 16 years of increasing illiteracy and dwindling school enrollment, some people are giving the new government’s education efforts high marks.

“The new government is working better at addressing the problem,” said Ligia Callejas, an education specialist who has worked with past Nicaraguan administrations and the World Bank.

The challenges facing the education system are severe.

Nearly 28% of those 15 and older don’t know how to read or write, and the illiteracy rate in rural areas is closer to 50%. Most classrooms are strapped for basic supplies and many of the textbooks are a decade old.

Although 80% of school-age children enroll in primary school each year, only 29% go on to graduate the sixth grade, according to UNICEF.

The Ministry of Education is hoping to the turn the situation around with several major programs, ranging from a massive literacy campaign to overhauling the basic curriculum. Education reform had been one of the hallmarks of the Sandinista revolution, which in the early 1980s dispatched “literacy brigades” to the most remote corners of the country.

The Sandinista literacy campaign was criticized by some as being overly politicized; reading materials, much of which were supplied by Cuba, were used as a means to teach people the benefits of revolutionary politics.

But in parts of the country that had been long marginalized, the literacy campaign produced clear results. According to studies by UNESCO, the National Literacy Crusade reduced the illiteracy rate from 50% to 23% in several short years after it was introduced in 1981.

Those numbers crept back up by the end of the decade-long civil war and continued to grow under 16 successive years of neoliberal governments that reduced spending on education. Now, the Sandinistas hope to reduce illiteracy to zero.

In announcing the new Sandinista literary campaign, which aims to teach 100,000 children how to read and write by the end of this year, First Lady Rosario Murillo said that the country faces a “different fight,” but one with the same goals.

“You cannot build humanity where there is illiteracy,” said Murrillo in a May 18 speech.

Callejas said that some of the key elements of the Sandinistas’ education plan don’t look too different from that of the Bolaños plan, which critics claimed was not backed by resources.

However, a major distinction in the Sandinista plan, she said, has been to eliminate school fees and the dress code.

The education fees were initiated in 1993 to give schools extra funding to run better. But the average $2 a month charge was too much for some families.

The uniform requirements were also an impediment, with children who went around barefoot – a common sight in rural communities – being turned away from class.

“It was creating private schools out of a public system,” said Callejas.

Many poor families need their kids to work and even with the changes enrollment is still relatively low. But not all the current problems with Nicaragua’s schools are related to poverty, said Callejas.

She points out that about half the teachers here don’t have a proper degree in education, especially in rural areas. Studies by the World Bank on 4th and 6th graders show that Nicaraguan students are far behind other Central American countries in basic skills.

Anna Plana, who runs a hotel on Little Corn Island, said that she tried to start a restaurant at this remote tourist retreat, but had to scrap the plans because she couldn’t find enough qualified help.

“Some of the waiters couldn’t even write down the orders,” Plana said.

The government initiatives are being funded with a modest budget increase, but Nicaragua is also receiving specific aid for education from Cuba and Venezuela, as well as the United States. Outside investors are also donating funds and school supplies, which are among the most popular charitable gifts from foreigners doing business in Nicaragua.

“Education is crucial for developing this country,” Callejas said.