In Venezuelan Schools, Creating 'a New Man'

Students at the Fermin Toro School in Caracas, where the curriculum extols the socialism of President Hugo Chávez, participate in a martial arts session. (By Juan Forero -- The Washington Post)

Luis Tascón, a congressman who was recently ousted from the president's party but remains a believer in Chávez, said the opposition is politicizing "a necessary modification" to the education system.

"They're trying to latch onto whatever they can," Tascón said. "They just want to fight. They don't have a reason here."

Chávez frames the education reforms as the latest stage in a series of steps that have improved Venezuelan schools. He recently moved Héctor Navarro, minister of science and technology, to the top spot at the Education Ministry, replacing the president's older brother, Adán, a former Marxist physics professor.

Last year, Chávez said that 7.4 percent of national income went toward education, up from 3.6 percent when he took office in 1999. He also said the student-to-teacher ratio is 28 to 1, down from 62 students per teacher in the 1999-2000 school year.

Sierra, too, praises the virtues of the Bolivarian system. She has been a teacher for more than 30 years and has little good to say about the way things were done in the past.

These days, she said, perhaps what she likes the most is the egalitarian nature of education.

"The idea is equality, that the student feel that this institution belongs to him," Sierra said. "I recall how teachers in the past would say, 'You students there and I'm here. You're the student, I'm the teacher.' Here, no. We communicate like a family."