Cuban Education Minister Naima Trujillo exposed in Mexico the obstacles her country faces in guaranteeing the continuity and quality of its educational system due to the U.S. blockade, the island's Embassy reported.

That policy and its intensification through an energy siege limit access to fuel, resources, equipment, and technologies indispensable for the functioning of educational services, denounced the representative of the Greater Antilles.

In the context of the World Conference on "Literacy for People, the Planet, and Prosperity," held in the southern state of Chiapas, Trujillo stressed that it is a priority of the Cuban Government to guarantee the right to education, even amid these difficult circumstances.

She noted that, as an expression of the administration's political will, with the participation of families, agencies, and organizations from both the state and non-state sectors, it was possible to guarantee the completion of the past school year and create the conditions for the next one, which began on September 1.

The minister spoke on the panel dedicated to "How literacy can contribute to the three interrelated dimensions of sustainable development: people, the planet, and prosperity, as well as to peace."

She emphasized that there can be no true peace, development, or freedom without culture, and that literacy constitutes an essential starting point for achieving them.

According to a message published by the Embassy on its X social media account, the minister called for understanding literacy as a permanent process, one that does not conclude with the acquisition of basic reading and writing skills.

Faced with accelerated technological transformation, including the expansion of artificial intelligence, she mentioned the need to prepare people to confront new challenges and develop the necessary competencies to be up to the demands of their time.

Trujillo highlighted the Cuban experience, whose 1961 national literacy campaign made it possible to declare Cuba, on December 22 of that year, the first territory free of illiteracy in Latin America.

According to her, that historic mobilization was followed by a policy of educational continuity and international cooperation that transcended the island's borders, among whose main expressions is the "Yo, sí puedo" program, made available to other peoples since 2003.

According to data from the Ministry of Education, the program developed by the island and its successive updates have been implemented in more than 35 countries and have contributed to teaching more than 11 million people to read and write, adapting to different cultural contexts, languages, and Indigenous tongues.