The Vice-minister Eugenio González Pérez and other officials checked the adopted strategies

The actions of the educational sector in the province to ensure the resuming and completion of the 2019-2020 academic year, as well as to prepare for the next school term, were checked by a work team from the Ministry of Education, headed by the Vice-minister Eugenio González Pérez.

Las Tunas, Cuba.- In an exchange with the sector managers here, the Vice-minister expressed that when resuming the teaching calendar it will be essential to maintain the perception of the risk that the COVID-19 represents, since the reopening of schools cannot become a danger to the health of students and workers.

The Ph.D. emphasized that the implemented strategies must be adapted to the specific conditions of each institution, always attached to quality, and the established health requirements must be rigorously met as the top priority. In this sense, he pointed out that drinking water, the necessary hygiene products for disinfection and the areas provided for hand washing should not be lacking in the centers.

At the meeting, Nílser Piñeda Cruz, provincial director of Education, announced that for the next academic period a considerable increase in enrollment in various schooling levels is projected. However, he pointed out that they have a teaching coverage above 99.4 percent, as a result of the considerable decrease in the exodus of professionals from the sector and the incorporation of more than 600 graduates.

Regarding the physical distancing that must be maintained in the facilities, Piñeda Cruz reported that “we have 4,254 groups of different educational levels in 4,402 physical classrooms, of which 2,824 are in Primary Education. Solutions have been sought in all of them using the variants indicated for this purpose.”

When analyzing the situation presented by the material base of study and life, the manager said that with the existing inventories the necessary texts are guaranteed and there are indispensable resources such as bed sheets, towels, mattresses, cot covers and hypochlorite. The main difficulties focus on liquid detergent and toothpaste.

Local governments and the Hydraulic Resources Company work together in order to guarantee the supply of water to the schools, mainly in the 219 that receive the water through tank trucks. At the same time, construction actions are being carried out in 91 institutions in response to the demands of the COVID-19 measures, with a budget of 816.6 million pesos approved by the central state budget.