Cuba's highly qualified personnel, technicians and workers perform daily tasks, in some cases astonishing ones, to overcome the negative effects of the U.S. blockade, a scourge that also forces teachers to resort to creativity.

By Roberto Morejón

Cuba's highly qualified personnel, technicians and workers perform daily tasks, in some cases astonishing ones, to overcome the negative effects of the U.S. blockade, a scourge that also forces teachers to resort to creativity.

Although in more than 60 years of blockade the general impact has translated into losses of more than 154 billion dollars, Cubans count those losses for each sector.

Much more so when Washington's siege, intensified during Donald Trump's term in office, was dramatically associated with the Covid-19 pandemic and in 2022 with the international crisis, due to high food and energy prices.

All this punishes the educational system of the largest of the Antilles, despite the fact that in the midst of accentuated material deprivations, the government allocated 24 percent of the national budget to it this year.

It is true that education continues to be a right for all and its overall balance is a source of pride for Cubans and a reason for global recognition.

But there is no denying the consequences of the U.S. blockade on the purchase of raw materials essential for the manufacture of pencils, paper for books, tempera, wood for refurbishing furniture or replacing deficits in laboratories.  

The Ministries of Education and Higher Education are making great efforts to repair buildings, but there is a shortage of imported construction materials and equipment.

The ramifications of the U.S. blockade on the special education system are also visible throughout the country.

Although it has priority for enrolling students with disabilities, this type of instruction requires, for example, machines and printers with the Braille system, special chairs and gadgets to help teachers in their classes.

But the high cost of these items and the need to obtain them in distant markets due to the impossibility of doing so in the United States, makes special education in the Caribbean nation more complex.

Even with all the shortages, teachers and professors do not remain tied down, according to what they say when asked how they face their beautiful daily work in front of the classrooms.

Education in Cuba is still free and although the material deficit is tangible, no student goes home because of the closure of his or her school, but the international community is once again assessing at the UN the traces of an atrocious U.S. policy.