Why Juan Can Read

Illiteracy is a social ill that grates on a nation's conscience, raises painful visions of a stubborn ailment curable only by radical political surgery. Yet Mexico is showing the rest of the world that the condition can be successfully attacked with a combination of persistence, pesos and ingenuity. In 20 years, it has slashed its illiteracy nearly in half--from 52% to less than 28%.

In the rugged hills near Piaxtla, an isolated village in the state of Puebla, a modern auto recently pulled a bright orange trailer toward a group of waiting campesinos. They unhitched the trailer, hooked it up to a pair of brown oxen, and the animals plodded to the top of a hill overlooking the town.

Along the road below, all of Piaxtla's residents cheered the trailer's arrival--and with good reason. It was a mobile school, the first in the village's history.

Nearly 200 such trailers, equipped with movie projectors, record players, school benches, and a cot and stove for the roving teacher's comfort, are roaming Mexico's rural areas.

10,000 Classrooms. Launched in 1944 under President Manuel Avila Camacho, sharply stepped .up in 1959 by President Adolfo Lopez Mateos, and energetically continued by President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz for the past three years, Mexico's campaign to wipe out illiteracy is gaining new momentum. Under Diaz Ordaz, Mexico has spent four times as much on education as it has on national defense; up to 10,000 classrooms have been built each year during his administration, and 5,000 more are currently under construction.

What makes the achievement all the more remarkable is the difficulty of reaching much of Mexico's unlettered population. Half of its 44 million people are land-tilling peasants. There are more than 50,000 communities with a population of less than 100--many of them accessible only by all but impassable dirt roads. But the isolation of the campesino is slowly breaking down. Fathers urge their sons to get some basic schooling so that they can land jobs in the nation's expanding industries and urban areas. Thus when a school trailer arrives in a village for its 31-month stay, it becomes a popular social center. The young children sit under an awning attached to the trailer for basic Spanish instruction in the morning, older youths return from farm chores to study in the afternoon, adults gather at night.

Villages large enough to support a permanent school can get one fast. From six large depots in Mexico City, they can order prefabricated steel frames, desks, blackboards, a basic 50-book library, toilet and shower, and quarters for a teacher. The village pays a third of the cost (about $400), supplies such wall material as concrete, adobe or brick, and provides the labor to assemble the structure, which can be put together in a few days. "Knowing that they have contributed," explains Construction Engineer Enrique Estrada, "gives villagers a sense of pride and ownership."

Woman to Woman. Mexico's campaign against illiteracy has created some social tensions. Especially in rural areas, husbands expect their wives to tend to their home knitting, shun any ideas that might make them more independent. A "woman-to-woman" program, in which the wives of national, state and village officials joined the language classes, had to be conducted to give the classes status as an acceptable female activity. Mexico's Indians sometimes resent being taught how to read and write Spanish, frequently revert to their own tribal dialects, at least in conversation.

Mexico's "alphabetization" program is plagued by other problems. There is a notable shortage of trained teachers, especially those willing to accept the rugged conditions of life in a mobile school. School texts are becoming more available, but otherwise there is a shortage of libraries and good books in Mexico. "Once they have learned to read," concedes Literacy Program Official Augusto Santiago Sierra, "they are deep in comic books or pornographic novels." Nonetheless, President Diaz Ordaz and the national director of the literacy drive, Ramon Bonfil, are justifiably pleased with results so far. And they hope to make Mexico a fully literate nation by 1970.

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