The counterrevolution in Nicaraguan education

Monthly Review, Feb, 1992 by Michael Friedman

For over a decade, education was a top priority for the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The UNESCO-recognized Literacy Crusade of 1980, which reduced the illiteracy rate from 53 percent to 12 percent, was followed by a proliferation of adult education programs and the extension of educational opportunities through the university level to the rural and urban poor. However, by the latter part of the revolutionary period war, economic blockade and errors took their toll, as illiteracy once again climbed, education programs were cut, facilities deteriorated, and teachers left the system.

On February 25, 1990, the Sandinista government was defeated at the polls by a U.S.-backed coalition of parties with a neoliberal economic program. At the head of the Education Ministry (MED) were placed, successively, Sofonias Cisneros and Humberto Belli, both conservative Catholics. In the two years since the elections, what changes have occurred in the education system, and how are teachers and students responding to these changes?

A central aspect of the new education program, according to Katherine Grigsby, former Vice Education Minister, and Darwin Juarez, former National Education Council member, is the "Catholicization" of education. The Chamorro government's first education minister, Sofonias Cisneros, a civil engineer, was the president of the Catholic Theresian School's Parents Association, and very close to Nicaraguan Cardinal Obando y Bravo, who apparently recommended him for the job. Cisnero's vice-minister, Humberto Belli, the current Education Minister, belongs to a charismatic Catholic sect, the City of God. In declarations made early in his tenure, Belli defined the MED's new education policy as "a Christian policy, dialectical in life, so the student can develop his critical consciousness."(1)

What this means may be seen in the introduction of classes in "Morality and Civics" in the elementary schools. The textbooks for these classes, "Let's Learn to Get Along," written by the authorities of the Theresian school, quote extensively from the Bible and inculcate the conservative Christian agenda regarding sexuality, abortion, sex roles, marriage, and respect for the figure of a punitive God.(*) Mario Quintana, Secretary General of the National Teachers Union (ANDEN), pointed out that the Ministry of Education "withdrew a large number of books donated by Norway, simply because the natural science texts discuss the origin of humans." Darwin Juarez argued that, "By incorporating the Catholic Church's values in the education system, the MED violates the secular character of education, guaranteed by the Constitution, as well as the religious freedom of other social sectors."

The Education Ministry has also raised banners against politics and ideology in the schools. Educators such as Doreyda Obando, a sixth grade teacher at the Sierra Maestra School, view this with skepticism: "They can't say that now education is not politicized, because clearly every education system responds to the interests of the government in power, so I think they should [distinguish between] |the politics of the previous government and the politics of the new government.'"

"Since we were living in a revolutionary process," Doreyda Obando added, "the revolution was reality, and what we taught the children was based on reality." Thus, behind the claim that the authorities want to "depoliticize" education, said Mario Quintana, "they want to eliminate the revolutionary thought developed during ten years in order to impose their own type of thinking." Deputy Education Minister Humberto Belli confirmed his words: "Your highest purpose," he said to teachers, "is to exorcise from the books, classrooms, and schools all the evil taught during ten years of evolution."(2)

The methods education officials have employed to |exorcise' the education system include burning books from schools and public libraries and firing and harassing Sandinista teachers. According to Mari Quintana, the new education authorities have fired over 1,000 teachers and transferred many others to distant regions because of their Sandinista or trade union affiliation. Student leaders and those involve in protests have also been expelled or suspended by their schools.

The MED has also begun to change the curriculum, methods, and textbooks in accordance with their overall political conception. For example, Katherine Grigsby explained that the MED had abolished the "Science and Production" programs, "which sought to link intellectual and manual work via a liberatory pedagogy," and have added programs such as "Morality and Civics," Philosophy (written by authorities of the National Theological Seminary), and Computation, "You're talking about computation for an elite, for those who have access and economic possibilities to have computers," said Grigsby. "This is a type of demagogic manipulation that doesn't fit the reality of a country as underdeveloped, in an economic crisis as profound, as Nicaragua."