Although Liván studied at the Enrique José Varona University of Pedagogical Sciences in Havana, he owes his work as a reviewer to his father. “I finished my social service a few years ago and I realized that I didn’t want to continue being linked to a state school,” he tells 14ymedio. “My father had been reviewing for the entrance exams for more than 20 years and I started helping him.”
Liván, who has a reviewer’s license, began by collaborating with his father to print the bibliography, review some student assignments, and collect payment. But in mid-2021, the old patcher died a victim of covid-19. “I thought that we were going to have to close the little school but the students began to ask if I couldn’t take care of the revisions and I have done so”.
With a house near the Manolito Aguiar pre-university school in Marianao, Liván has a group of ten students who go once a week to prepare for the mathematics exam for access to higher education. “They just passed the tests, so now I’m on a break, but I’m happy because all my students passed with good grades.”
Liván inherited many contacts in the official education system from her father and, in addition, she prepares her classes focused on the entrance exams of previous years. “I review based on the content that has come out on these tests but I also have to fill in a lot of knowledge gaps that they bring up. The worst areas they get this far with are geometry and working with fractions.”
“I review based on the content that has come out in these exams but I also have to fill many knowledge gaps that they bring”
For a cost of 300 pesos per month, the student has at least four group classes and an extra hour of personalized attention. “Although now everything is digitized, I also provide the service of printing part of the content and test exams so that the student can train. It is important to work not only on mathematics, but also on security and concentration. I pretend that they are in front of the admission Test”.
“The boys’ own teachers send me to say what they need more help with. I have a good relationship with them and I try not to question what they do, because I know very well what it is to be in a classroom and also carry a lot of paperwork and a salary that is not worth it,” he admits.
“The first thing I tell new students is that it’s not like their school here. You do have to study here and I’m not going to give you any grades. It’s in your hands to achieve, in one fell swoop, a career university that they like or having to prepare one more year for the entrance exams. Liván already has full registration for the next group that begins in January. “I can’t keep up, I have had to say no to those who have come to me in recent days.”
His assessment: “These last are the worst students I’ve had in a long time. The pandemic did a lot of damage, but there are deeper problems here. I get students who don’t even know how to multiply, they’re in the 12th grade of high school and they don’t know how to divide either. Very unfortunate”.
“The boys’ own teachers send me to say what they need more help with”
The director of the school where Angélica works as a teacher was categorical a few months ago: “All students have to pass the grade regardless of how they are.” The arguments put forward by the officials of the Ministry of Education who visited the school a few days before pointed out that “no one is to blame for the pandemic and we cannot drag so many repeaters because they did not learn the content due to the confinement of so many months.”
Angelica spoke with the parents of some students to review them after school hours at home. “In the morning she gave him classes in the classroom and in the afternoon she reaffirmed the content with exercises and questions,” he details to this newspaper. “Although in the end I had to pass all the students, whether they knew it or not, at least those who had tutors learned something.”
In your case, you have no plans to leave your employment relationship in a state school. “I haven’t thought about it but I feel much more comfortable working in a private way because I go at my own pace, I can be more demanding with the students and they behave much better. When they are paying for a revision it does not occur to them that they are wasting their time in giggles or games”.
After many years accusing private tutors of being a threat to “absolutely free” teaching in Cuba and keeping them illegal until in 2013 they were allowed to obtain a license to work on their own, now the official press admits that it is almost impossible to access the university without first attending several review sessions.
“Although in the end I had to approve all the students, whether they knew it or not, at least those who had tutors learned something”
The vindication comes late for those who were previously “violators of the law”, such as acknowledged this tuesday the newspaper Escambraybut it points out a clear fact: the quality of the Cuban educational system is insufficient, the gaps among students are increasing and a satisfactory teaching process depends, more than ever, on the money that the family can pay.
Before he left “underground” in 2013, “more than a few flatly refused to spend their money on these ‘takers’ and some even promoted a crusade or a kind of witch hunt,” he says. Escambray.
After taking for granted the need for the repairmen, the newspaper exposes that their work leads, albeit indirectly, to “inequality among the boys.” Learning should be “a responsibility of the school”, but given the institutional deficiencies, the reviewer is used, whose activity –in practice– is not limited to supporting the contents, but also does homework, facilitates extra-class work and accommodates the student. student according to their needs.
In addition, it is necessary to distinguish the usual subject reviewers –generally Mathematics, Spanish and History– and those who prepare the student for aptitude exams, such as those necessary to enroll in art schools, the Higher Institute of Industrial Design or the careers that require special requirements, such as Journalism or International Relations.
Systematically discrediting the sector is difficult, because, as he admits Escambraythe redressers are usually the most “ prestigious educators of the territory”. Retired teachers or professors who need additional income have found in this job the economic incentive that the Ministry of Education, which always pays late and with low salaries, denies them.
Without ambiguity, the newspaper lists old problems: “incomplete faculty, some teachers and professors without the most basic knowledge about the subjects they teach, loss of time on campus, lack of organization in the processes, disinterest and demotivation in not a few teachers , dogmas in the exams and a long etcetera that does not exclude some other fraudulent and corrupt turbidity”.
One of the commentators accused the text of being “disrespectful” to the Cuban educational system, and blurted out that young people from Sancti Spiritus do not need the revision service
“Draining one’s pockets” seems to be the only solution, regrets the text, but it is evident that, in the economic crisis that Cuba is experiencing, many families must choose “between paying a shop assistant or basic household expenses.”
The report published by the organ of the Communist Party in Sancti Spíritus raised a harsh controversy among readers. One of the commentators accused the text of being “disrespectful” to the Cuban educational system, and blurted out that young people from Sancti Spiritus do not need the revision service. Those who have, he says, “are wasting their time.”
A reader pointed out that, after the meal, the poor education of the children is the “main topic” of family conversations in Cuba. While Gualterio Núñez, another commentator, stated that there are many educational expenses that the State “does not contemplate or subsidize.”
In addition to assuring that in any country the “support of private teachers for education” is normal, he lamented that when Cuba returns to normal, citizens will realize the importance that access to a complete education would have had for the development of the country. quality.
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