Brasília, June 23, 2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - The Minister of Education, Cristovam Buarque, hopes that society's recognition of the importance of education reaches the point where it is no longer necessary to sign agreements to provide literacy instruction for young people and adults. He made this affirmation on Friday (20), at a ceremony to sign a protocol of intentions with the Interstate Federation of Private Schools (Fiep).

The program springs from an initiative taken by the Fiep, which wants to collaborate in the task of eliminating illiteracy by 2006. "At first, people said that this campaign wouldn't take hold. Now we no longer need to look for people to participate in this process," Cristovam affirmed.

For the president of the Fiep, Cláudio Tricate, the problem of illiteracy affects all social classes, and the organization wants to collaborate, making available private school facilities, when they are not in use. According to Tricate, a Unesco survey revealed that 350 thousand parents who pay for their children's studies are unable to read. "We need to discover how to deal with this problem," he said.

The first part of this protocol will take place at construction sites. The Fiep plans to make buildings, school material, and teachers available to colloborate with contractors in the sector to teach 2.5 million workers to read and write. This partnership is already being analyzed by the Ministry of Education's (MEC) legal affairs office.

With the collaboration of private institutions, the secretary for the Erradication of Illiteracy, João Luiz Homem de Carvalho, believes that it will be easier to put in practice the agreement signed between the MEC and the contractors' syndicate. The contractors have been having difficulties in setting up the courses due to a lack of teachers. (DAS)