UNESCO report:
Cuban education is world-class
By Arturo J. Pérez Saad
The United Nations Education, Scien tific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) on Nov. 8 released its Education For All
(EFA) Global Monitoring Report for 2005. This report
specifically focuses on elevating the quality education of all
children, especially the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, by
the year 2015.
Cuba, Canada, Finland and Korea are signaled out in the
report as high-performance countries and role models to follow
in quality of education.
Cuba, a relatively underdeveloped coun try of 11.2 million
people, spends 10 to 11 percent of its GDP on education, by far
the highest ratio of any country in the world. Finland, the
next closest, spends 6 percent.
Cuba's educational system is mandatory through the ninth
grade, free to all at all levels including higher education and
"promotes the whole individual (including physical education,
sports, recreation and artistic education) while explicitly
linking education with life, work and production." This is done
through what Cubans call emulation, a form of competition where
the group works together to win as a collective.
The study calls Cuba's educational feats "impressive." Less
than 10 years after the revolution, it had reduced illiteracy
by 40 percent, achieving a 96.9 percent literacy rate. Its
pupils-to-teacher ratio is now 13.5 in primary school and 15
for all levels of education.
The EFA report refers to the first international comparative
study conducted by the Latin American Laboratory for Assessment
of Quality in Education (1999). This study measured the levels
of achievement in the fields of language, mathematics and
associated factors for students in the third and fourth years
of primary school in 13 Latin American and Caribbean
countries.
The major findings of this report are that "Cuban students
achieved the highest scores in Language and Mathematics, and
take less time to complete a grade (Advancement Rate). This is
the case in all of their schools. Differences in achievement
for this country, in terms of gender and socio-cultural levels,
are also reduced."
President George W. Bush's program titled the "No Child Left
Behind Act" has had the opposite result. It has left not only
children behind, but also teachers. The ratio of students per
teacher has increased in many schools to over 40 students per
instructor. Furthermore, this act has exposed the discrepancy
in the educational system here, where low-income children,
especially from oppressed groups, will never receive the same
quality of education as children in high-wealth districts. The
discrepancy is up to $2,000 per year per student.
The act has paved the way to the militarization of
low-income schools, which were given two options: either have
military recruiters on their grounds to obtain federal funding
or risk school closure. Yet the federal government is
stonewalling any progress in improving and elevating the
quality of education of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged
by underfunding the act by $7.5 billion, according to the
American Federation of Teachers.
The excuse given is the cost of the Iraq War and the funding
of Homeland Security, but in reality it is due to the inherent
contradictions in class society. Unlike socialist Cuba, where
the revolution considers education and healthcare to be
fundamental, the U.S. government deems militarizing young minds
more important than elevating the standards of education for
all, especially nationally oppressed and low-income
children.
According to the American Council on Education, in the
$388-billion omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal year 2005
the Department of Education is underfunded by between $780
million and $2.3 billion. More than 84,000 college students are
expected to lose Pell Grant eligibility and another 1.2 million
will see smaller Pell Grant awards. Those students affected
will be from low-income families earning less than $40,000 a
year.
The Bush camp is trying to strengthen the immoral and
illegal blockade of Cuba. Through its Commission for Assistance
to a Free Cuba, the U.S. government has drafted a blueprint on
privatizing all sectors of the Cuban economy that were
nationalized after the 1959 revolution.
The nationalization of these sectors provided the revolution
with the material foundations to set an example for the world
in education and health care. The broad people's movement must
stop the Bush administration from trying to undo these great
advances.
Reprinted from the Dec. 23, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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