Mission robinson

Robinson Mission, promoted by the government of Hugo Chávez in the Wayuu communities.

The Robinson mission (the name Robinson comes from the pseudonym used by the writer Simón Rodríguez) is a social program of the Venezuelan national government of Hugo Chávez, to teach the illiterate population to read and write Venezuelan, with educational materials different from the usual and made in Cuba, called "Yo, sí puedo". The equipment includes books, school supplies, slides, as well as glasses for people with vision problems, which are given to the beneficiaries. The program is divided into different levels, depending on the knowledge of the student. The goal is to end illiteracy in the country, and from Mission Robinson other massive instruction programs have been carried out for the population, such as: Mission Ribas and Mission Sucre. According to a Datanálisis survey, 72.2% of the population supported the educational missions.

Results

Developing the National Literacy Plan. Older people learning to read and write with the Robinson mission in Isla Borracha, Anzoátegui State on March 27, 2004.

In 2005, the Chávez government declared Venezuela an "Territory free of illiteracy." However, in 2008 Francisco Rodríguez and Daniel Ortega published their research paper titled Free from illiteracy? A close look at the Robinson literacy campaign in Venezuela, where they studied the results of the Mission Robinson literacy program and determined that it had very small effects on the level of literacy, even achieving that in several of the estimates made by the effect was statistically indistinguishable from zero. In its 2015 report EFA Monitoring Report, UNESCO reported that Venezuela would not achieve the fourth objective of the Dakar Framework for Action, which consisted of “increasing by 2015 the number of adults 50% literate, particularly in the case of women, and provide all adults with equitable access to basic education and permanent education”, at least according to their 2013 projection, which estimated that Venezuela would be among the countries that they would be around 5% below the target. For 2015, UNESCO estimated that illiteracy in the country reached 4.6%.

Criticism

The opposition expressed its skepticism towards the mission, considering it a pretext for the entry of Cuban instructors, mass education of poor quality, for purposes other than educating. They also mentioned that the real purpose of the mission would have been the indoctrination of the population, other accusations are of cases of corruption in the destination of resources. The director of the Institute of Economic and Social Research of the Andrés Bello Catholic University said "The missions have a very high propaganda content".