Cuba prioritizes the resumption of the school year as soon as health circumstances allow it

by Roberto Morejón

Cuba prioritizes the resumption of the school year as soon as health circumstances allow it, because education is a major priority for the State, and in accordance with the calls of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.  Actually they recommended governments and countries to avoid what it described as a "generational catastrophe" -- referring to the educational halt due to the spread of COVID-19.

Cuban Education Minister Ena Velázquez participated virtually in the Ministerial Round Table on the implementation of Education for Sustainable Development, inherent to the UNESCO World Conference.

The Cuban official highlighted the principles on which Cuban education is based, among them solidarity and the cultivation of spirituality, and preserving the material requirements of human beings.

As Velázquez emphasized, the policies of economic and social progress implemented in Cuba give education a leading role.

That is why today educators, computer scientists and other specialists are designing alternatives so that students can recover the time lost.

As it happens in many places, in this Caribbean nation children, young people and teenagers remain at home due to the incidence of SARS-Cov-2.  But the Ministry of Education is not inactive in guaranteeing the learning process of schoolchildren, as well as the scientific-methodological preparation of teachers and directors, in the midst of the pandemic.

In Cuba, the implementation of television activities stood out, whose content is periodically improved, in addition to providing guidance to these children.

Several day-care centers continued to be opened and a thorough work had to be done to help students living in areas and communities that are difficult to access.

This is intended to keep students engaged with the subjects, even though direct contact with the teacher is not comparable, something that will come again, although under a relative normality, with the observance of hygienic-sanitary measures that should continue after the expected vaccination of Cubans this year.