HAVANA, Cuba.- More than 1,600,000 students returned to classrooms this Monday, September 2, at the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year, a school year that will take place in an unfavorable context due to the lack of teachers, the deterioration of educational facilities and the shortage of teaching materials (mainly teaching materials and technological resources), among other problems.
The movement in educational institutions began in late August, with the call that teachers make every year for their students’ parents to buy classroom lighting and cleaning supplies, renew the paint and repair doors, windows, tables and chairs in the premises.
According to Reinier Toledo Cuesta, whose son started secondary school, for some years now the Education Department has only been painting the facade of the schools, while parents have been responsible for “turning the classrooms into habitable spaces. Without this contribution, the disaster would be greater. And you cannot refuse to collaborate, because they look at your child askance all year round,” he explained.
Toledo adds that the expenses dedicated to the beginning of the school year exceed the monthly income of many families. “My wife and I started saving since the end of the last school year. Preparing for a new school year is the same as preparing for a new school year. a New Year’s Eve. It is a significant expense, you have to plan ahead and save money from several salaries,” he said.
How much did the start of the school year cost Cuban parents?
Contributing to the repairs of the infrastructure and furniture of the schools was just a minor outlay within a glossary that includes shoes, backpack, snack bar, pencils, notebooks and the printing of most of the texts and exercise books that correspond to each grade.
According to Norma Verdugo Cáceres, the first sacrifice was to complete the school uniform, since her sale It only covered the initial grades of each school with an allocation of two modules per student for the entire school year. In addition, the sizes available were too large.
“The uniforms were huge, even fixing them didn’t help. I bought a size 32, which is for a man, not for a 12-year-old boy. And I have to admit that I was lucky, I have heard of many people who didn’t make it to the store. They said that they would be back in the next few days, but everyone knows that it’s a lie, that there won’t be a second round,” said Verdugo.
The interviewee says that to “solve” the pieces of her son’s uniform she resorted to online sales, where she found the shirt and pants set for 1,500 pesos. “The prices? Sentences. I bought three changes of clothes, put the pencil in there so you can see how much I spent on that alone. It’s incredible that the government doesn’t have any and private individuals do, but nothing surprises me anymore in this country,” she stressed.
Parents like Mirtha Mena Ortega had to tighten their belts to ensure they had back-to-school attire. However, for the next ten months, their children will have to wear last year’s uniforms: “They’ll last another year and, as life is tough, I couldn’t take care of everything,” said the woman, who prioritized the purchase of shoes and backpacks.
To do this, he visited the main private fairs in Havana, looking for the most affordable offers. “There is no such thing, and even less so in this time of demand. It seems that everyone – the self-employed— they agreed on prices, because everywhere a pair of average quality shoes costs more than 10,000 pesos, and backpacks cost 6,000 pesos,” he added.
The cheapest places to buy these items are still the so-called candongas that operate as informal markets. However, explains Bárbara Chamizo Sierra, in places of this type, such as the one in La Güinera, Arroyo Naranjo municipality, the price of five pairs of white socks, a pair of shoes and a backpack with a picnic area costs 25,000 pesos or more.
“It was 32,000 pesos in one fell swoop. I could have saved a couple thousand, but it wasn’t worth it because of the difference in quality. In a couple of months I was going to have to start buying things from him again,” Chamizo said, pointing out that in the midst of the crisis, inflation and scarcity of the investment has a detrimental impact on the family’s nutrition.
After the first four days of classes, the number of expenses has not stopped increasing due to the incomplete distribution of teaching materials. By level of education, the primary schools that are the least affected have delivered only three of the five notebooks that students should receive for the first cycle, and only two pencils.
Moraima Araujo Coss, mother of a second grade student, told CubaNet Teachers advised to buy at least 20 more notebooks to complete the rest of the year. “There are no guarantees that they will be distributed again, parents must get them and distribute them in doses. That is what there is,” she said.
High school students have been the most affected, receiving five booklets to cover between 15 and 17 subjects, depending on their grade.
