CUBA:
Shoring Up the Educational System
By Patricia Grogg
LA HABANA (IPS) - In the new school year, which begins next Monday,
Cuba's educational system will be trying out several changes aimed at
overcoming the decline in the quality of teaching, blamed on a shortage
of teachers and other problems.
"I am waiting to see what happens. My daughter begins secondary school
now, and if she doesn't get good teachers and her grades drop, I'll have
to find another school or pay for private tutoring. These are the most
difficult years," a Cuban journalist who asked to remain anonymous told IPS.
This week, Education Minister Ena Elsa Velázquez said there would be
more teachers on the payroll this year. A shortage of more than 8,000
teachers, identified as one of the most pressing challenges facing the
educational system, has begun to be reduced as a result of the return to
the classroom of retired teachers.
Velásquez said that 4,948 retired teachers were returning to work, under
a decree issued in mid-July by President Raúl Castro. The emergency
measure offers retired educators the opportunity to continue drawing
their pensions while teaching and earning a full-time salary.
"There will be 235,943 teachers working this year, 32,070 of whom are
teachers-in-training. The exodus is 30 percent lower than last year,
with nearly 2,000 fewer teachers filing for retirement," said the
minister, as reported by the local press.
There are 2,549,845 preschool, primary and secondary school students
enrolled for the 2008-2009 school year in Cuba.
Velázquez also announced that teachers would be given more time to
prepare their classes. "That was sorely needed. Now we can also dedicate
more time to studying," Kruskalia Masa, a 45-year-old primary school
teacher, commented to IPS.
In her view, the quality of teaching in Cuba has gone down because
teachers are given very little time to prepare their classes, a problem
that only worsened as the number of educators shrank. "In addition, we
will now have more assistants, who obviously don't replace teachers, but
do provide support for their work," Masa added.
A report by the education minister on performance in the 2007-2008
school year states that among the main challenges that students in the
first few years of secondary school must overcome are difficulties in
spelling and writing, and poor reading habits.
Veláquez was named education minister in April after the sudden removal
of Luis Ignacio Gómez, who headed the ministry for 18 years.
"He had lost energy and revolutionary consciousness," wrote ailing
former president Fidel Castro in a column in which he backed Gómez's
replacement.
The deterioration of education, especially due to the shortcomings of
the teachers-in-training system, courses taught by video, and distance
learning courses offered on television, was a frequent complaint voiced
in the popular debates called by Raúl Castro in a key Jul. 26, 2007
speech, when he was still acting president.
Such criticism was also voiced at the 7th Congress of the Union of
Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) in April, by intellectuals like
Alfredo Guevara, one of the veteran cultural leaders of the Cuban
revolution.
"Can our primary, secondary and prep schools properly educate children
and adolescents and thus lay the foundation for the future as they are
at present, governed by misconceived criteria and practices that ignore
elementary pedagogical and psychological principles and violate family
rights?" he asked.
During the congress, which was held behind closed doors, Guevara also
reportedly warned that the teacher-in-training programme has produced
"young student teachers whose training is lacking and incomplete and
whose maturity level is far short of what it should be."
Teachers-in-training are used to complete the teaching staff of schools,
which have also been equipped with TV sets, VCRs and computers as
learning aids. The changes introduced include a reduction of video
classes to half an hour, with 15 minutes left for the teacher to provide
explanations.
"Television is a support for teachers, it should not replace us," said
Masa, who stressed that "a sense of vocation and dedication" are
indispensable in her profession. "Unfortunately, the mass training of
young people as teachers does not ensure that they all have these two
qualities," she added.
In the plans for the new school year, the main task of retired teachers
who return to the classroom will be to supervise and advise the young
teachers-in-training.
In Masa's view, that is an "essential" step towards strengthening
education in Cuba.
Education, which has been universal and free in Cuba since the 1960s, is
considered one of the main accomplishments of the 1959 revolution. But
like other sectors in Cuba, it was unable to escape the impact of the
severe economic crisis that hit Cuba in the wake of the collapse of the
Soviet Union and East European socialist bloc.
Nevertheless, in the latest study on scholastic performance carried out
by the Latin American Laboratory for Assessment of the Quality of
Education (LLECE), which is coordinated by the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) regional
bureau, Cuba was found to have the highest performance levels among the
17 nations studied in Latin America and the Caribbean.
In the study released in June, "Student achievement in Latin America and
the Caribbean; Results of the Second Regional Comparative and
Explanatory Study (SERCE)", Cuba was the only country whose third-grade
pupils attained math and reading scores more than one standard deviation
higher than the regional average, that is, over 100 points above the 500
points representing the average of all the countries studied.
http://insidecostarica.com/special_reports/2008-08/cuba_education.htm
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