From one end of this province to the other, the routines of thousands of families are about to change. After five months of complex and unexpected life experience and previously unthinkable practices, which came to remain in our day to day life, classes resume and schools return to be filled with laughter and hubbub.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- For the only time, September does not bring the new school year, but it does come accompanied by teachers, knowledge, hopes and a future. Greater challenges will court the reunion and even so, each school: the largest, the most humble, the neighborhood, the rural and the university, will open their doors with the sacred goal that intelligence and virtue always know how to defend themselves.
"On September 1, all students must go to their schools," Jorge Luis Reyes Izaguirre, provincial deputy director of Education, told 26 Digital. At the same time, he explained that current circumstances require that access to them be regulated, so the parents will take the minors to the door of the institution and the teaching staff will transfer them to the corresponding premises.
More than 83 thousand students will return at different levels. The closing of the course will have 10 weeks, counting the last one in August, in which the teachers developed an intensive methodological preparation based on the curricular adjustments established by the Ministry of Education (Mined). The purpose of the first four weeks is to level the students and then the evaluations and the planned integrative seminars will be carried out.
"Throughout the territory," said the manager, "we will take measures to prevent Covid-19 from entering our institutions. We have guaranteed chlorine for foot steps, hand washing and disinfection of areas. The use of the mask by workers and students will be mandatory and the required distancing has been achieved in classrooms and residences."
In Primary Education, the greatest efforts have been concentrated in order to eliminate overcrowding, because its full enrollment will attend both sessions from Monday to Friday. The rest of the educations will have specific days and times of lessons. We will adopt all possible variants; at this minute we have 4,200 physical classrooms and fewer pedagogical groups, so that what is established is fulfilled, taking full advantage of the school network."
The students from boarding schools were picked up on August 30 and 31 at the established points and everything is in order for their safe stay in the facilities. The kindergartens will maintain flexibility in the entry and exit times, and in the junior high schools the snack will be ensured. Regarding the school uniform, Reyes Izaguirre said that the sale will begin in October, prioritizing the initial grades.
In the 2020-2021 academic year, the figures will grow in various aspects, an example of this is the increase in enrollment in junior high schools and Technical and Vocational Education. In the same way, this province will begin the coming calendar by analyzing an old and persistent problem in the sector: the deficit of teachers, by reporting coverage above 99 percent, the best in recent years.
UNIVERSITIES, CLOSER TO THE COMMUNITY
The universities of Las Tunas are abuzz at this time. Its teaching staff makes the necessary adjustments so that the processes stopped last March are resumed on September 1. The same in the University of Las Tunas as in the University of Medical Sciences, the rectors assure that the resources are guaranteed, the educational plans have been modified and the hygienic-sanitary measures and physical distancing are well outlined.
New practices are gaining ground. Looking more and more at municipal spaces as core support in training is, perhaps, one of the most important. At least at the University of Las Tunas, the doctor of Sciences Víctor Manuel Cortina, vice-rector of the center, comments that the experience so far in this regard has been mostly in pedagogical majors. However, the 35 disciplines that the campus assumes, between regular course and mixed-mode course, will return to this modality.
We will receive only continuing students, with enrollment divided into two equal parts. One group will come to the Pepito Tey and Lenin campuses on even-numbered weeks and the other on odd-numbered weeks. The regular course will be from Monday to Thursday, although with intense work sessions. Final exams and culmination will take place from November 23 to 27. On the 30th, the new school period would begin, with the normalization of the schedule and an adjustment of two semesters or two stages, each of 16 weeks.
I think that the link that we are going to achieve with the municipalities, as long as the students stay there with extension work, research, will be very important. They will know the social environment where they will later work professionally."
With more experience in this type of training, the University of Medical Sciences comes to this close. Its rector, Dr. María Elena Mawad Santos, assures that the success they hope to achieve has a lot to do with previous, exhaustive and very intense work.We brought the teachers from the municipalities to our headquarters to receive the methodological preparation and we did an analysis of the subjects or rotations of academic years that could have continuity in the localities of origin at this stage. Of course, those who live far from the municipal capitals or show us that they do not have the conditions to get to those places on time will stay in our student residence, but they will be the least.
If within any rotation there is something that they cannot overcome in the corresponding demarcation, we are creating the conditions for the student to stay in rooms of the residence and comply with the provisions of the provincial hospitals. I give the example of Manatí, the gynecological and obstetric rotation, which is in the fourth year of Medicine, can be done there, except for the sub-rotation of childbirth and postpartum care."
It is a distance education system that revolutionizes Higher Education, as the world moves today. Many elements of this training will be maintained for the 2020-2021 academic year. The students who are calm, that what takes presence, will have it. The physical examination of a patient will not be substituted for anything. The diagnosis in which they need to interrogate, inspect, palpate, auscultate and percuss, because it will have all that, without fail."
ARMS TO BE GATHERED
Both the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education agreed that the material assurance is still incomplete with respect to the high demand, but emphasized that it is a sector prioritized by the Party and the Government and that they have already taken the necessary measures to guarantee that the teaching process has what is necessary for its successful development.
The expectations are high. At home, quality is expected in teaching and teachers trust that the family will do its part. Meanwhile, a whole country embraces and yearns for the return of its best and greatest project: school.