Havana, Cuba. – The Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, in its article 66, prohibits “the work of girls, boys and adolescents” and specifies that “only in exceptional circumstances those adolescents graduated from technical and professional education are authorized to join work in order to guarantee their training and integral development”.
However, for a long time students who fluctuate between the ages of 12 and 17, and who had general average education were forced to work as part of the program of “The school in the field”. All under the slogan of combining the study with work.
Similarly, students who received their instruction in the cities had to participate for 45 days in the school plan to the field. In the case of male students of pre -university education, their school to the field was for 70 days, in the rude tasks of the cut of the cane, or in Las Vegas Pinareñas.
It is noteworthy that in the initial versions of the school to the countryside, such as the staged on Isla de Pinos in 1966 – it was not called Isla de la Juventud – the hostel conditions were extremely deplorable. He slept in hammocks and had breakfast water with sugar.
In the days that run, the critical economic situation that Cuban families are going through has forced many young university students to seek some job in order to help family maintenance, or cover their own feeding, transportation and others expenses.
Given this situation, the government was in need of issuing several regulations that authorize the work of young university students. Only then have they been able to stop the tendency to abandon the studies by many young people who already planned to leave behind the land of the Alma Mater.
A recent report appeared in the newspaper Workers It realizes that at the end of 2024 a total of 1,985 university students were hired in the state sector, while another 3,000 did it in the non -state sector.
Obviously these are conservative figures, because only those students who are legalized in their employment take into account. That is, they have gone to the municipal offices of the Ministry of Labor, and the National Office of Tax Administration (ONAT). They are figures that leave out those university students who work without going to any of those entities, and that swell the list of informal workers of the economy. Therefore it would not be ventured to estimate that the real figure of hired students would be twice the informed, especially in the non -state sector of the economy.
On the other hand, of 262 students surveyed at the University of Havana, 62% of them worked, and around half awarded to ignore the existence of legal norms that protect them.
The official discourse argues that these students-workers who work as informal do not have access to social security in case of getting sick, nor do they accumulate time and vacation money. In this case they apply a reasoning of philanthropic cut.
The reality, however, is that the authorities are worried before so many taxes that stop paying those informal students-workers who work today in coffee shops, palates and other private businesses.
