In the absence of uniforms, many young people wear casual clothing and even a garment until recently banned in schools, the ‘jeans of the Empire’.
14ymedio, Havana, 1 September 2025 –The beginning of the school year in Cuba, this Monday, was far from the epic repeated by the state media, between promises of “celebration” and “commitment.” While official acts and triumphalist speeches were multiplying on television, in Sancti Spíritus a grandmother had to sell the Metformin she takes to control her diabetes to buy notebooks for her grandson. The mother of the child, who lives abroad, was not yet able to send the package with the school supplies, and the old woman chose to exchange her health for the materials.
It is just one of the stories that 14ymedio has collected about the beginning of classes. In Holguín, the driver of a private taxi recounts the experience of a passenger whom he transported this morning who moved from Buenaventura. “He did not even allow his son to go to the first shift of classes in the Alberto Sosa secondary school. It was enough for him to see the scene,” says the driver. “Faced with the lack of teachers and the indiscipline, without anyone being able to control it, the disorganization and the rumors of drugs in the vicinity, he preferred to return the boy to his village rather than leave him at that school.”
The problem of drug use also haunts the José Miró Argenter secondary school, in the periphery of Holguín. “Some parents have paid between 10,000 and 15,000 pesos to get their children transferred to schools that are more central and supposedly safer,” the taxi driver added.
Behind the official choreography, the country shows a bleak picture. Dozens of schools have been closed because of their deterioration, and classrooms are overcrowded due to lack of teachers. The discourse is rife with euphemisms such as “assurances” and “optimization of resources.” But on the street, the most repeated phrase is another: “lack of everything.”
The lack of uniforms was evident from this first day. Photos taken by 14ymedio reporters show students dressed in casual clothes, including the jeans of the Empire, until recently banned from schools. Even the official cartoons made humorous allusions to the problem. In state stores, many families did not find the sizes they needed, and on the black market a single garment is sold for a price that very few can afford. Some parents resorted to bartering, exchanging shirts and blouses. Once again, the help of relatives abroad was the lifeline.
A state employee of Sancti Spíritus sums up the paradox: “It is cheaper to buy school supplies in Spain and send them, than to get them in Cuba.” And with shoes the drama is even greater. One mother paid the equivalent of more than two months’ salary, about 13,000 pesos, for basic shoes.
The shortage is compounded by lack of sleep. Parents and teachers agree that the blackouts affect rest and learning. In Camagüey a power blackout since two o’clock in the morning is reported just before the opening of schools. A mother described on Facebook the irony of hearing the school talk about a “better future” after staying up all night. “My daughter already knows how things are,” she wrote on her Facebook page.
In the school yards, decorated in some cases with Venezuelan flags that had little to do with the occasion — as in the primary and secondary school José Luis Arruñada of Nuevo Vedado, in Havana — parents looked at the few materials delivered with distrust. They describe two pencils, badly copied notebooks and old books that many recognized as the same ones they used in their childhood.
The shortage of teachers, however, is the biggest obstacle. In Camagüey, 19 schools did not open their doors; in Holguín they speak of “zonification,” a technical term which in practice means crowded classrooms and longer journeys. The few teachers who resist must accept part-time contracts, split shifts and face overcrowded classrooms. Two decades ago the government boasted an “ideal” of 20 students per classroom and up to two teachers in some grades. That reform evaporated, and today’s classrooms inflate like balloons about to explode.
In Camagüey, 19 schools did not open their doors, and in Holguín they speak of “zonification”
The officials speak of “creativity,” but for most families that word implies mending used uniforms, improvising backpacks and finding desks on their own. For teachers, it means recycling notebooks, dictating notes instead of using books and photocopying guidelines with money out of their own pockets.
The opening act this Monday ended with the usual script: a ceremony that tried to disguise as celebration what is actually nostalgia. Parents know that the real test begins the next day, when the pencil is missing, the teacher can’t give attention to everyone and the notebook pages run out before November.
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.