Schools reopen across Cuba as fuel, water and power shortages persist
Schools reopened with 1.4 million students as shortages of teachers, food and uniforms forced families to improvise, officials said.
- On Tuesday, more than 10,000 schools across Cuba opened, welcoming an estimated 1.4 million children and more than 135,000 teachers despite severe shortages of fuel, instructors, and uniforms.
- Teacher coverage fell to 73% across the island, prompting Education Minister Naima Trujillo Barreto to reassign more than 3,000 educators from eastern provinces to Havana to maintain operations.
- School uniforms met only 12% of demand, leading Trujillo Barreto to allow students to wear "comfortable clothing" while requiring traditional red and blue kerchiefs.
- Families like the Barrosos rely on borrowed animals for transportation after thieves recently stole their horse, complicating school attendance amid power outages lasting more than 20 hours.
- Calling the reopening a "heroic act," Trujillo Barreto acknowledged the difficult environment for an island whose education system was once a crowning achievement of the 1959 revolution.
37 Articles
37 Articles
Radio France Internationale
Back-to-school in Cuba a grim day with shortages of everything
At the Maria Cabrales Elementary School in the Havana area, kids filed into class without the typical bell-ringing or music to welcome them. The neighborhood had not had electricity for 28 hours. For 35-year-old hair dresser Yannay Miranda, like many of the parents of Cuba's 1.4 million pupils, the challenges of getting ready for the new year began long before Tuesday. She had to find a uniform for her six-year-old daughter, arrange food for her…
Havana, 1 Sep (EFE).- Around 1.4 million students returned to classrooms in Cuba this Tuesday, in the midst of the energy and economic crisis, which will mark an exceptional academic period. The Cuban government celebrated the date with an event in Havana in an attempt to sustain one of the so-called “conquests” [...] The entry Cuba starts a “adjusted” school year to the crisis and the “overhelp” of families was first published in HolaNews.
In the María Cabrales primary school, in the Havana municipality of Diez de Octubre, the course began without a doorbell or music of welcome. The area had been without electricity for more than 28 hours. For Yannay Miranda, a 35-year-old hairdresser whose daughter Olaya, six years old, studied in that center, the challenge began long before the first day of school. She had to get uniforms, organize the feeding of the small one and prepare for th…
Clarin
Independent EspañolOne and a half million students start the school year in Cuba, facing blackouts and resource shortages due to the oil embargo. Parents and teachers make efforts to maintain education despite the difficulties, with community support and flexibility in the rules.
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