Since last week, with the return to classes of the ninth-grade students, the streets of the municipality of Las Tunas once again wore uniform colors; but, without a doubt, on Monday's session, that reality will be more noticeable.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- Here, and in the municipality of Colombia, in the south of the province, the students return to the classrooms to close their school year in person. They had interrupted, the first, since April; the latter, for just a few days before the rise of the COVID-19. That return means that Las Tunas, also marked by an exceptional scenario, will be the only one in Cuba that has been able to complete the 2020-2021 school year with a certain regularity in person.
Of course, a closure as atypical as the whole year, marked by extreme sanitary measures, the mandatory use of the facemask, footwear baths, the limitation of access to educational centers, the readjustments of schedules and the need, every day more evident, of the dialogue with the family and its role of this in the closing of the stage.
Nílser Piñeda Cruz, provincial director of Education, explained this weekend that the school year has been developed so far according to the established plans, and last week the activities with most of the ninth-grade students were concluded.
He also said that the Primary and Special teachings will continue to work according to the guidelines indicated so far, and confirmed that the face-to-face activities of the undergraduate courses in Higher Education will not be resumed.
In the schools, meetings have been held with parents in these previous days and some, both in cordial dialogues and in the exchange by WhatsApp groups, have highlighted that this time in the classrooms is to consolidate knowledge, apply the evaluations that are oriented with enough time, and officially close the learning stage: no one will repeat the course nor will they take final exams, unless the student decides to upload grades or needs it for their grade pass.
Seventh, eighth, tenth and eleventh-grade students will take their exams between June 28 and July 2. About the twelfth grade students, Nílser Piñeda, in his speech this Saturday, stressed that, as the entrance exams are scheduled for February 2022, two groups of students will join next year. He assured that all students will receive teaching attention according to the specificities of each municipality.
The director reiterated that the students of first and second years of Technical and Professional Education (ETP) and the first of Qualified Worker (OC) will attend school from Monday to Friday in a class session, and on the contrary, they will be linked with impact tasks, cooperated productions, attached classrooms, among other modalities.
Those who are in the third year of the ETP will attend school three days a week and in the other two they will carry out internships in labor entities. Those in the second year of OC will take the exam for obtaining worker qualification from June 28 to July 10.
