NOTE: I know I'm not posting brand new stuff this month, but I thought this piece might be interesting for others to read. It was my final for my Latin American History class in 2007.
The Cuban educational system has been one of the most well-known in the world since Fidel Castro ascended to power. Proponents praise the system for producing some of the highest rates of education and literacy in Latin America, while critics attack the system for its rigidity in the promotion of ideas as well as its reliance on the “Cumulative School File”, a cumulative report card which measures academic achievement as well as “revolutionary spirit”. A low measurement in the cumulative school file can result in a diminished amount of career opportunities. It is my argument that ultimately the Cuban educational system has served as an impediment to individual intellectual progress. Before coming to that argument, it is important to first understand the history of Cuban education both before Castro as well as the evolution of Cuban education during the Castro regime. The paper will conclude with a regional comparison of Cuba to its fellow Latin-American nations.
From the time Spanish explorers arrived in Cuba until the end of the nineteenth century, Cuban education almost exclusively fell under the authority of the clergy. Public education was existent, but very basic. The only high-level education found in Cuba fell under the authority of the Church. Unfortunately, the only students who were able to attend the private institutions were the students whose parents possessed some degree of wealth.
The story of modern Cuban education begins with the occupation of Cuba by the United States, a period which lasted from 1898 to 1902. At this time, Cuba was under control of the United States, a result of the Americans’ victory over Spain in the Spanish-American War. The President of the United States during that period, William McKinley, ordered for Cuba to be given a quality educational system patterned along the lines of the educational system found in the United States. Leonard Wood, the American governor over Cuba at the time, was placed in charge of this task by McKinley. Under Wood, the Cuban educational system was molded in the American model and moved away from the Spanish-influenced system that was in place. American textbooks were translated into Spanish, and Cuban teachers were sent to the States to study American teaching methods. During this time the Americans also built private Protestant schools in an attempt to counteract the many years of Spanish-led Catholicism in Cuba.
After Cuba became an independent nation, attempts were made by the nation to continue the trend started by the United States to improve the country’s educational system. In 1940, the Cuban Constitution required compulsory education for all students. Unfortunately, Cuban education at this time was not known for its quality but rather its inequality. This inequality existed along cultural divides. Children dwelling in the cities and more urban areas possessed greater access to resources than their rural counterparts. The opportunities and resources were all found in the cities. Cuban education hit a low point in 1958. During that year Cuba, which housed a population of approximately seven million people, contained one million completely illiterate people as well as over one million semi-illiterate Cubans. Saddest of all, 600,000 Cuban children never received any schooling at all. Things had regressed to the point that times were worse for Cuban education in the 1950s than in the 1920s.
During this time, the entire nation of Cuba was going through a period of great turmoil and upheaval, and eventually the revolutionary Fidel Castro was able to seize power. In the midst of wide-scale changes for the country, Castro’s government made the fight against illiteracy a high priority. The government enlisted the help of over one hundred thousand student volunteers to traverse the country to teach reading and writing. These students became known as the “literacy brigadistas” and were given adequate training and resources to travel to the rural areas to educate their peers.
While these brigadistas had a large deal of success, they were not immune from trials and tribulations. Since they were a group enlisted by the government, they became targets for counter-revolutionaries. The counter-revolutionaries in rural areas attacked and killed many of the young teachers with the hope that they could halt the spread of pro-Castro ideology. The literacy brigadistas went on this traveling campaign for just one year, but after this year, over seven hundred thousand people became literate, and the illiteracy rate fell from 20% at its low point in 1958 to just 3.9% at the end of 1961.
After the year-long literacy drive of 1961, education has remained a priority of the Cuban government under Castro. In 1961, Cuba also dissolved private schools and put them under the authority of the government. The education system became directed by the state, and there is no tuition for any level of schooling. The only slowing of Cuba’s education drive since 1961 occurred in 1991 during the “Special Period”. The “Special Period” was a period of economic instability directly resulting from the end of the Cold War and the discontinuation of Soviet funding of Cuba. This time of economic unrest somewhat impaired the government’s educational plans, as resources had to be spent on other matters. The government places a premium on education, and it shows in its expenditures, with over $2.7 billion CP spent annually as of 2002. The amount of education expenditures comes out to just under nine percent of Cuban GDP. That percentage doubles the percentage of expenditures allotted to Argentina (4.3%), a country which is Cuba’s closest rival in terms of education in Latin America.
All males and females between the ages of six and sixteen are required to go to school. Students are issued uniforms colored based on the grade of the student. Students are in primary education for their first six years of schooling. Cuban education differs greatly from American education when it comes to the secondary level. Secondary education in Cuba is divided into two levels. First, there is basic secondary education. At the completion of this level, students are given the choice whether to advance to pre-university education or move on to technical and professional education. The degree and progression for students vary based on this choice.
Education past the secondary level is found at the universities. All forty seven universities in Cuba are public and fall under the control of the Ministry of Higher Education (MES). In 1979, the Distance Education program was introduced by the MES. Under this program, night and afternoon courses are offered in fifteen centers for five degrees. This program currently affords approximately twenty thousand students the opportunity to complete their education in their own time while still working to provide for themselves as well as their families.
During Castro’s regime, Cuban education has fared consistently high not only among Latin American nations but in the world as a whole. Cuba’s rates of education and literacy soared to 96% in 1995, placing them second to Argentina among Latin American countries. Things have gone so well in Cuban education that a study in 1998 by UNESCO showed that the students who tested in the lower half of Cuban students were scoring higher than the upper half of students in some of the other Latin American countries in tests of mathematics and language skills.
Cuba’s education program has led to a large output of physicians. As of 2002, Cuba had the largest amount of physicians per one thousand people in the region (and third in the world) at just under six physicians. Conversely, Cuba’s number of lawyers has traditionally been small due to the government’s low prioritization of the legal field during the beginning of Castro’s regime, but in recent years the path to getting a law degree has been amended, leading to a rise in lawyers. All lawyers are contracted by the government, as there are no independent practices in Cuba.
Conventional wisdom would suggest that education in Cuba under Castro’s government has brought forth intellectual progress. However, I would argue with that claim at the individual level. While Cuba has succeeded at bringing equality into the educational system and ensuring that all children receive the opportunity to learn the same things, the subjectivity of the content is a gateway to wide-scale groupthink. The “Cumulative School File” has probably robbed countless students of career opportunities and educational advancement. Unfortunately, marks of individual achievement have not been evident.
In each and every Cuban school, one set of ideas is taught for everything. There is no room for debate or criticism of these ideas. Early in primary education students are taught that God does not exist and follows Marxist thought in dismissing religion as the “opium of the masses”. If students profess a belief in God while at school, their parents are brought in, and any parent that has been found to teach their children ideas different from communism are faced with a three year prison sentence. Interestingly enough, reports of this religious rigidity have come as recently as 2000, which was two full years after Pope John Paul II visited Cuba. Article 8 of the Cuban Code for Children states, “Society and the state work for the efficient protection of youth against all influences contrary to their Communist formation.” When there is only one set of thoughts and ideas being allowed to pass freely, it is extremely difficult for progress to occur. When independent thought is not taught or encouraged, it is difficult to proceed naturally. In the occasion that some great thought is even conceived, it must first pass through the government before it can affect the rest of the world. The educational system of Cuba has impaired individual intellectual progress in the very same manner it has improved literacy rates: by teaching one set of ideas in every school across the country, it has ensured that all students learn the same thing while preventing them from drawing their own conclusions.
In addition to the very restrictive Cuban curriculum, each student is subject to a “Cumulative School File” kept on them. This file is somewhat similar to the report cards found in American schools in that it keeps a record of academic achievements. In addition to academics, however, other areas are measured. The largest other area measured is “revolutionary integration”, in which both the student and the rest of his family are assessed by their involvement in mass demonstrations as well as their affiliations with any sort of religious group or denomination. If the student or his family is not living in a manner becoming of a Cuban Marxist, he is denied career opportunities, and his university options are limited. This Cumulative School file follows the people of Cuba throughout their entire lives and is constantly updated. One negative report early on and the rest a Cuban’s life can be permanently limited vocationally.
The Cumulative School File has served as a great impediment to individual intellectual progress. Those who think differently (or merely have family members who do) are denied the opportunities that their neighbors have regardless of merit. Though the schools in Cuba are free for all and teach the same things, the Cumulative School File has created a degree of inequality and has deprived some of their best and brightest from making a difference in both the intellectual and global community.
The results of the Cuban education drive have not been exceptionally unique in comparison to that of other Latin American nations during the same period. The top indicator of Cuba’s educational growth, its rise in literacy over the last forty-plus years, is not unique among other Latin American nations. Its percentage of increase between the 1950s and 2000 was equaled or bettered by Paraguay, Colombia, and Panama, and those nations’ literacy rates in 2000 are not far behind that of Cuba. Before the Castro regime took control of Cuba, the nation ranked fourth in literacy among Latin American nations. In 2000, it placed in a three nation tie for second.
A global indicator of intellectual progress is the Nobel Prize. Out of the 779 individuals whom have been awarded the Prize in all areas, not one of them has claimed Cuba as his or her residence. This is not due to some Latin American bias. In fact, non-peace prize winners have emerged from Argentina (3 Nobel Laureates), Brazil (1), Chile (2), Columbia (1), Guatemala (1), Mexico (2), and Venezuela (1). With a nation that produces as many doctors per capita as Cuba has, it is initially nearly unthinkable that none of them have made any sort of intellectual advances in the world of medicinal science that could be appreciated at the global level. At a closer look, it is not entirely surprising that no great individual progress has been made. This can almost solely be attributed to the traditional communist focus on the collective rather than the individual. Cuba has succeeded in getting its people in and out of school, but in doing so sacrifices a little “great” for a lot of “good”.
To conclude, it would not be prudent to state that the educational system in Cuba has not improved under the reign of Fidel Castro on the whole. However, the curricular makeup of Cuba’s educational system as well as the Cumulative School File have both done their parts to serve as an impediment to individual intellectual progress. If things do not change in both the curriculum as well as the blacklisting of those with alternative beliefs and ideas, it is not beyond the realm of reason to believe that the intellectual progress of Cuba will stagnate or decline within the next twenty years.
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