Cuba’s educational work began with the nationalization of education (+audio)
The enactment of the Law for the General Nationalization of Education in Cuba, on June 6th, 1961, was a crucial and extremely important step in the transformations that the nascent revolutionary government was undertaking in favor of the people and was the beginning of everything that has been achieved in the field of education.
With this law, of only five articles, public and free education was established, and all educational centers were awarded in the name of the State, prior compensation.
Consistent with Marti’s precept that ‘an educated people will always be strong and free’, the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, prioritized the development of an Integral Education Reform and proclaimed 1961 as the Year of Education.
It was in that same calendar when transcendental deeds took place, such as the founding of the contingent of Volunteer Teachers and the National Literacy Campaign. New study programs, new learning methods, and more comprehensive plans such as the creation of schools in the countryside were other actions that distinguished this stage and allowed the revolutionary project of achieving a humanist, integral, secular and inclusive education for all to be fully accomplished.
Since then and up to the present day, the achievements and conquests of Education in Cuba are multiple and internationally recognized. However, its transforming and renovating process is still ongoing and today new ways of doing things are being applied in correspondence with the Third Improvement of the National Education System, which involves teachers, families and the community in teaching and decision-making to achieve quality and effectiveness in the formation of the men and women that the country needs.
Precisely and on the occasion of her recent visit to Matanzas, the Vice Minister Dania López Gulbone, highlights to Radio 26, the current priorities and challenges of the Mined.
…ONLINE AUDIO
Written by Yovana Baró Álvarez.
