World Bank Document

Scandinavian population, the difference in literacy performance is due
to the heterogeneity of populations in Canada and the United States.
The study of Latin American countries conducted by the United Na-
tions Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
(Casassus 1998), however, shows that heterogeneity of populations is
not a barrier to a country having a high literacy performance.
In particular, Cuba’s performance in the literacy assessment for chil-
dren in grades 3 and 4 is much better than that of the other Latin
American countries (figure 6). The government of Cuba introduced
health and other programs for mothers and young children more than
30 years ago. The focus was on health and child development. The key
question that comes from these data is: Are the Cuban results different
from those of Brazil, Chile, and Colombia because of education, social-
economic factors, or the investment in mothers and children?
Today, Cuba’s performance in the literacy assessments is better than
that of the other Latin American countries, and life expectancy is bet-
ter than that in almost all other Latin American countries (table 2).
Since we now know that literacy, competence, and life expectancy are
related, it is not surprising that Cuba, a relatively poor Latin American
country, but with excellent child development programs, has higher
life expectancy than most Latin American countries.

68 J. Fraser Mustard

Level

1

2

3

4

5

01020304050

Percent

Figure 5. Percentage of Adults in Poverty, by Literacy Level, U.S.A. (Prose)

Source:Adapted from U.S. Department of Education 2002, p. 61.