Due to lack of fabric, there will only be enough for four grades and if the parent has the patience to endure hours of waiting in line
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodriguez, Havana, 5 August 2024 — The sale of school uniforms, which officially began on August 1, is already a display of long lines and complaints. As the official press warned, uniforms are only offered to the “initial grades,” that is, those in which students change cycles: preschool, fifth, seventh and tenth grade, as well as the first year of Technical-Professional and Pedagogical Education.
The Ministry of Domestic Trade warned that the garments for the remaining grades will depend on the “arrival of fabric imported by the industry.” Monica, a young woman from Luyanó, in Havana, the mother of three girls, one in preschool, another 12 and the oldest age 13, confirmed this Monday the disorder and shortages that govern the process.
“Of the smaller sizes, which are the ones that sell the most, there is no size 4, there are only 6 and 8,” said Monica, who got up early to be able to wait in the long line. “They don’t even say if there is a lot or a little or what.” Of her other two daughters, only the middle one, who is going into seventh grade, is required to wear a uniform.
The process, explains this mother, referring to the packages of basic products sold in the stores, is “like the [food] combo”: with their identity card, customers sign up on a list, which they then call to go to the store.
None of this is specified by the official media, which report that the Ministry of Domestic Trade “acknowledged delays in the production of vouchers, so sales will be controlled according to lists issued by Education.” Likewise, they indicated that each province would report on the “organizational measures” adopted for the sale of uniforms.
In Santiago de Cuba, according to Sierra Maestra, “relatives should call the educational centers for more information.” They also explained that two sets of clothes will be offered for preschoolers and one set for the rest of the grades planned.
The same will be sold in Sancti Spíritus, according to the newspaper Escambray, although for fifth grade they plan to end up distributing two sets of clothes. One will be sold in “a first stage” and the other “will be received when the industry completes production.”
We will start the sale with the existing inventories in the retail network and with the quantities that were left in the Universal Company,” Domingo Chaviano, an employee of the Business Group of Commerce, told Escambray. “This means that school clothing cannot be delivered in the same way in all places.” In that province, sales take place in Jatibonico and Fomento, in addition to the main municipality.
In Las Tunas, things are worse, according to what Periódico 26 published: in the “first phase,” two items of clothing will be sold for preschoolers and one for fifth graders, and only in Majibacoa and Manatí.
It didn’t take long for Monica, Luyanó’s young mother, to give up on her venture. At 9:30 a.m., half an hour after opening the store she was authorized to shop at, only two people had been served. The entire line, under the sun and next to sewage, became desperate. “I left, I’ll buy everything at Revolico [an on-line site] because if I stayed there it would be one in the afternoon.”
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