Remarks for Ambassador Charles Glazer
Donation of Books and Educational Materials to the Ministry of Education
February 15, 2008

We are pleased to participate in this joint effort with the Ministry of Education to provide a better quality of life for the children of this lovely country.  It is for this purpose that our U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Strengthening Basic Education Program supports the Ministry of Education’s Plan 2021.

Under this program, the U.S. government is also providing support to the Ministry of Education to increase and improve expenditures in primary education.

Another important component of the program is the provision of valuable materials, such as those displayed here, to more than 1,000 schools throughout the country. 

This donation, valued at over $1.4 million, is also a result of alliances we have made with other partners: Mr. Ned Lamont – a close and generous friend of mine from the U.S. who has taken a special interest in El Salvador -- Scholastic, Kraft Foods, and the International Book Bank.  Mr. Lamont and these groups have donated books or made financial contributions to make this program possible.

These books and educational materials will serve to maximize Salvadoran children’s language competencies.  In fact, according to experts’ findings, early grade reading is extremely important because it is a foundation skill for virtually all future educational achievement.  However, in a number of countries, many students even in grade three or higher may not be able to read a simple sentence, or even recognize all the letters of the alphabet.  This results in enormous inefficiencies in education systems, such as a high rate of students repeating the same grade or dropping out of school.  Unfortunately, far too many students do not achieve the basic literacy skills required for them to continue to learn, and to better contribute to the social and economic development of their countries.

These materials are a complement to the Teacher Training Program in Language being carried out under USAID through Salvadoran universities.  We are convinced that with this donation, the Ministry of Education will be better able to reinforce teacher classroom practices, and will unquestionably make learning more fun.

Education is one of the fundamental pillars of development that we support in our assistance program to El Salvador. 

This partnership to improve basic education started more than 20 years ago during which the USG has contributed in many ways such as infrastructure, strengthening of education administration, curricula improvement, development of educational materials, training for school principals and teachers, research, and support to education reform, among others. 

I have no doubt that all of you who are here today will continue working towards creating more and better learning opportunities for the children of El Salvador – they are our present responsibility and the future leaders of this marvelous country.

Thank you.