While brand new luxury hotels with no lack of electricity, comfortable tour buses, and overflowing buffets gives foreign tourists the impression all is fine in communist Cuba, the reality is much different. Faced with the struggle to find food, the lack of fuel for transportation, teacher shortages and chronic blackouts that force classes to be canceled, Cuban college students have been forced to drop out of school in order to survive.
Alfredo Herrera Sanchez has the report in Diario de Cuba:
‘There are those who are going hungry’: Dozens of students drop out of the University of Matanzas
Modified schedules, teacher shortages, scant transportation and poor nutrition are some of the causes of this phenomenon.
Dozens of students in the Department of Agronomy at the Camilo Cienfuegos campus of the Universidad de Matanzas have dropped out due to the precarious conditions that prevail at that institution of higher learning.
DIARIO DE CUBA spoke with Bryan Michel Fajardo Borges, a second-year Agricultural Engineering student who is considering the possibility of joining those who have abandoned their studies. “My plans are to try to finish the semester by passing the classes that I must so that I don’t have to drop out. This semester, due to the issue of transportation, and various situations, the schedule has been tighter, and I’ve missed a lot. This means that I don’t attend face-to-face classes, which affects me a lot, since I learn better by listening to lectures than by reading a 20-page PDF document,” the 21-year-old explained.
At the end of September, the Universidad de Matanzas suspended in-person activities for at least a week due to an energy shortage that the Cuban regime called a “contingency.” The solution, to continue with the curriculum, was to “ensure online guidance during this period”.
This was not the first time that the students at the institution had their classes interrupted. Since the pause generated by the pandemic, energy problems on the island have repeatedly interrupted educational processes. Now, for example, the program continues for university students at Matanzas University, who are supposed to go to school for a week and then study for two at home. Professors take advantage of the week that students spend at the university to give them exams.
Fajardo has found it difficult to study for so long at home. Transportation challenges are another issue that worries him, as it is very expensive to get around. “My father is the one who supports me financially because my mother’s salary isn’t enough, and, being in college, I don’t have time to work. If I drop out of college I would mainly do what I did when I was on summer vacation: going door to door and selling through the different buying and selling groups on Telegram. In the month and a half that I was doing that, I made good money,” said Fajardo, who lives in the municipality of Colón.
This young man told DIARIO DE CUBA that 103 students started the current academic year, but there are only 40 left now. “That’s the other thing influencing my desire to leave school. I had friends there that I’d known since high school, and also new friendships that, for many of these reasons, have left school,” the young man explained.
“In the end, supposing I graduate, what kind of future would this country offer me? Most professionals are working freelance, because you can’t get by on a salary,” Fajardo concluded.
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