Although the project is “initially” restricted to the seven careers that are related to the Ministry, it is possible that it will extend to other faculties
14ymedio, Havana, 21 November 2024 — Students of seven technical careers in several Cuban universities will be sent – it is not clear whether en masse or voluntarily – to work in the energy-mining sector while they study. What began as an emergency measure to remedy the personnel crisis will become a common practice in Cuba, but with almost no benefits: they will earn the minimum, and nothing guarantees that they can keep their jobs after graduation.
On Tuesday, the State newspaper Granma praised the “new model of work-based training,” an idea that it attributes to Fidel Castro at a distant date – 1968 – which predicts success for the 44 companies where students will work. Juan Ruiz, general director of Mining of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, reported that third-year students from Electrical, Mechanical, Automatic, Chemical Engineering, Geology, Mines and Metallurgical will be called to respond “to the needs of the sector and the country.”
The model is already practiced by the Ministry of Public Health with university hospitals, Ruiz explained, and has begun to be implemented in the universities of Pinar del Río, Havana, Matanzas, Cienfuegos, Villa Clara, Camagüey, Granma, Holguín and Santiago de Cuba. Although the project is “initially” restricted to the seven careers that are “linked to the Ministry,” it is possible that it will extend to other faculties, the manager said.
The model is already practiced by the Ministry of Public Health with university hospitals, Ruiz explained
“Only third- and fourth-year students will be considered, since it is at these levels that they can begin to apply the knowledge acquired in a real environment. For first- and second-year students, the focus will be on the acquisition of fundamental knowledge such as chemistry, physics and mathematics,” he said.
According to Ruiz, some 84 entities were evaluated before implementing the measure, but only half met the requirements. Of these, 19 are electrical institutions; 11 are in oil; seven in mining; five in nickel; one is a salt mine; and the Institute of Geology and Paleontology is included. “Quality is not negotiable,” he said, alluding to the possibility that – due to inexperience – young people might do a bad job.
They will earn a minimum wage; they will be part of the staff as long as the “model” lasts; they will be paid for “fundamental specific projects”; but the Ministry cannot – according to Ruiz – guarantee that they will have a permanent position when they finish their training. The manager took no responsibility for the granting of places, saying that it was up to the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, “depending on the country’s priorities, although in some cases changes can be made legally.
Other education officials – the vice-rectors of the Central University of Las Villas (UCLV) and the Technological University of Havana (Cujae) – said that the measure implies a correction of “historical deficiencies” in the articulation of teaching and work in Cuba. “We want students to be more connected with the work environment,” they explained.
“We want students to be more connected with the work environment”
Although Granma does not mention it, Cuban universities have been sending students to work for years – at the expense of their own free time and without basic conditions of transport and food – in centers that need workers. Under the concept of “pre-professional practice,” the Ministry of Higher Education sends pre-university and first-year technical school students to work.
Jorge, a graduate of English Language at UCLV, remembers that every day he and his classmates had to go to the neighboring Lázaro Cárdenas polytechnic school to teach all kinds of subjects, as decided by the management of the center. “Lázaro Cárdenas is one of the worst schools in Santa Clara. No one wants to teach there, and they are always looking for teachers because no one lasts long,” he explains.
From his faculty to the polytechnic he had to walk almost half a mile along the edge of the road, which has a highly dangerous curve for pedestrians. “Trucks and buses go around at full speed, but it’s the only way to get to school.” Originally a Salesian school and expropriated by Castro, the current Lázaro Cárdenas school is a massive building in Girón style.*
“The worst part is not the students, who are stigmatized even in their own families for not having been able to opt for the pre-university, but the faculty and managers,” says Jorge. Those who had been there for several years looked “menacingly” at the “intruders,” because they had to give a report on their experience at the end of the semester.
“Everyone was dumped on the Lázaro Cárdenas. Neither those who went to the Ipvce (the pre-university of sciences) nor those who had to attend other pre-universities in Santa Clara complained in that way,” he explains. In the long run, the collaboration between the two institutions cooled, and those who continued going could have the luxury of attending the first weeks and then drifting out of the classroom. “It was enough to return in the final stretch of the course,” he says. “From the ’work-based training models’ there is no longer anyone who tells stories to Cuban students.”
*Unlike the ornamental style preceding the Revolution, this modern “brutalist” apartment complex was built in 1967 to house the workers of the Girón Bus plant.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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