Back-to-school preparations are stressful in any country, but in communist Cuba, it is punishing. With the Castro dictatorship diverting resources to build apartheid hotels and resorts for foreign tourists while slave wages and skyrocketing inflation makes most basic items inaccessible, Cubans are left to carry the financial burden of preparing their children for school.
Angeles Rosas explains in Diario de Cuba:
The Trials and Travails of Back-to-School Time in Cuba: ‘It Would Take Three Months’ Salary to Pay for Everything You Need’
With the Euro trading at 330 pesos, a box of school materials sent from Spain to Caridad in Havana would have cost her 19,800 pesos. This Havana woman did not have to pay that outrageous sum for her fourth-grade son’s materials, impossible to cover on her state salary of 5,300 pesos. Her brother, who lives in Madrid, surprised her with the gift.
“I managed to get almost all the material, which was a relief. The package contained a backpack, a set of rulers, a pen-and-pencil case with 23 items, markers, highlighters, two notebooks, a mechanical pencil, eraser, glue stick, a compass, and a Champions League folder, all with Real Madrid and Champions League designs for the kid,” she told DIARIO DE CUBA.
Most Cuban families, however, are not so fortunate. The school year began in Cuba on September 2, and, though the Government boasts of free education in its propaganda, it has not been so for some time. In recent years, in addition, inflation has made it harder and harder for workers to afford school supplies. Unable to provide material resources, including uniforms, and suffering from a lack of teachers, the Government has saddled families with ever-heavier burdens.
Marta told DIARIO DE CUBA that she went directly to a Santa Clara store to buy some notebooks. “I bought some for 200 pesos. Then they had some smaller ones for 100, so I bought more.”
In the capital of Villa Clara, another mother bemoaned the expenses that the back-to-school period entails. “You go to La Candonga and there’s everything, but the prices are through the roof. Yesterday a friend brought me some pencils and some pens. I have some notebooks left over from last year, and I’ll start using each one for two subjects, not to mention that I have to find him a tutor because he’s already in fifth grade and is doing very badly. He didn’t even have a teacher almost half of last year, so how are they supposed to learn?”
According to official data, around 1,600,000 general education students returned to the classrooms at 10,000 educational institutions across Cuba on Monday, to start a new school year, with 24,000 teacher positions (one in eight) not covered, and 12,000 people, including retirees, having had to return to the profession.
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Oh, please. This is what the “diaspora” is for. Move along.