Rio, September 19, 2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - The Minister of Education, Cristóvam Buarque, wants the war against literacy to be extended to all Portuguese-speaking countries. He made an appeal to the Brazilian Academy of Letters (ABL), "for its credibility, respectability, and importance, to be one of the foundations, one of the platforms from which can be launched a great movement to teach all the Portuguese-speaking nations to read and write. Starting with Brazil, but let us not confine ourselves to Brazil."

Buarque said that the first step in dealing with the problem is for Brazil to set an example, and to end adult illiteracy in the country, in a period of four years, it will not be necessary to register zero illiteracy. "Unesco itself says that, with under five percent, a country can already be considered literate. Now is the time to do this."

The goal of the Ministry of Education is to complete next year with at least one library in every municipality. Buarque provided this information on Thursday (18) at a special session of the ABL, in Rio, where he was awarded the Machado de Assis medal, named after the ABL's first president. (DAS)