More Cuban girls graduate from high school and go on to university

Cuba

U.S. President Barack Obama’s plane is expected to touch down in Havana in about an hour.

This is a family as well as a state visit to Cuba.

First Lady Michelle Obama and their two daughters will also travel aboard Air Force One.

She is a strong advocate of girls’ education and women’s rights.

CCTV America’s Michael Voss reports, these are issues about which the Cuban government is also passionate.

Cuba prides itself on its free education system, and like many countries where girls have equal access to education, they tend to do better than boys.
More Cuban girls graduate from high school and go on to university.

Marta Nunez was in high school when Fidel Castro came to power and she took part in the nationwide literacy campaign in 1961. Thousands of school and university students were sent around the country to teach everyone to read and write.

Now Cuba has a higher adult literacy rate that the U.S. and according to Marta Nunez, some 60 percent of professionals in Cuba are women.

University professor Isora O’Farill is also in charge of of Cuba’s English language courses run on on television. She grew up on a sugar plantation, her father a cane cutter and her message to Michelle Obama

Cuba doesn’t claim that it has completely eradicated racism or sexism. But it does believe that through free education, everyone has an equal opportunity to achieve their goals.