Miami, United States. – The Official Cuban newspaper Forwardfrom the province of Camagüeypublished an unusual criticism of the higher education system on the island on Wednesday, by highlighting the deep economic difficulties faced by university students, particularly those from distant municipalities.
In an article entitled “Study … but at what cost?”The newspaper portrayed a part of the daily obstacles that make a university career in Cuba “an act of sacrifice and delivery.”
“The Guajarense student who must travel weekly to the University spends 1,000 pesos only in transportation,” denounces the article. That figure is equivalent to “four pounds of rice or a liter of oil”, or even to the monthly salary of one of his parents, the text also points.
The note, signed by the journalist Elia Rosa Yera Zayas Bazán, emphasizes that many young people are forced to assume these expenses by themselves, while others abandon student residences because “the not so good conditions of the scholarship and food” force them to return to their homes on the weekends.
The economic problem is aggravated by the reality that many university students are forced to work in order to sustain themselves. “Today many young Cubans constitute the livelihoods of their homes, or at least they must help with the main expenses of the family and with which it represents studying,” he warns Forward. As a result, some choose to go to the course for workers or even abandon studies.
In addition to transport and food, the journalist mentions other additional costs derived from the deterioration of teaching. The reduction of academic rigor is another element that, according to the publication, negatively affects the system: “the so feared and respected income tests for other generations have become only a way of ordering students who wish to enter the university.”
The article denounces that some high demand careers such as veterinary medicine, law or engineering are being granted to students who do not even present themselves to income tests. This has caused an increasing rate of university dropout: “The rigor it represents studying at the University means that some of them then leave the studies for not overcoming the contents of the career that was granted.”
The article closes with a call to rethink the conditions of access and permanence in higher education in Cuba. “In 1,000 pesos a week, and a little more, the future of this country cannot be,” concludes the journalist.
