Being A Teacher Is Not Profitable In Cuba But It Teaches You To Love

"Being A Teacher Is Not Profitable In Cuba But It Teaches You To Love"


The damages to educational quality caused by the lack of preparation of
the "emerging teachers" remain to be measured. (Telesur)
14ymedio, Caridad Cruz/Mario Penton, Cienfuegos/Miami, 17 April 2017 –
teaching children cursive writing and educating them is much more than a
job for Adrian, an elementary school teacher in Ciego de Avila. His
threadbare pants stained with chalk dust make clear that he is not one
of those most favored by the economic changes on the island, even with
the recent 200 Cuban peso (about $8 US) raise in his monthly salary,
which he received for teaching 27 third graders, more than the state
class size norms.

In January, Ministry of Education Resolution 31 decreed a selective
salary increase of between 200 and 250 Cuban pesos for those teachers
who have more students in their classrooms than the norms set for
primary education. In the case of junior high and high schools, the
teachers who teach more than one subject also receive a cash incentive.

"Money is not the main thing in life, rather it is fulfillment, and that
is what my profession gives me," says this 29-year-old "emergent"
teacher, who graduated in the years in which the chronic absence of
teachers made Fidel Castro launch his Battle of Ideas and graduate
thousands of young people as teachers with just eight months of training.

At that time the hook used by the Government was exemption from
compulsory military service and the possibility of getting a university
degree in humanities without passing the qualifying exams.

Most of the young people who started the project left after the first
years of work in one of the lowest paid professions in the country.

The damages to the quality of education caused by the lack of
preparation of these emerging teachers remain to be measured, although
with the arrival of Raúl Castro to the power in 2006, that program, like
the other programs of the Battle of Ideas fell by the wayside.

"In January they raised the salary, but they do not want to call it a
salary increase because it only affects those who have more than 25
children in the classroom, but at least it's something," he says.

At the beginning of the century, Cuba decided to limit class size to 20
students, but the chronic shortage of teachers and the exodus of
professionals to other better paid work prevented this plan from being
maintained.

"For years I did the same job and they did not pay me extra," Adrian
laments. "The workers union's only purpose is to march on the first of
May of the plaza. They never demand anything."

Adrian has a salary of 570 pesos, about 23 dollars. He lives with his
mother, a retired teacher of 68, and he is the family's main
support. His salary "is not enough," he confesses, so he secretly sells
treats among the students at recess.

"If it was not for that, I could not make ends meet," he says. "After
all, nobody can live on their salary in Cuba."

The average salary of education professionals has hardly increased in
recent years. In 2013 it was 512 pesos, two years later, 537 pesos

Teachers are not allowed to engage in business activities in schools,
but many principals turn a blind eye to avoid losing the few experienced
teachers they have left.

"They say that in some provinces, like Matanzas, the state sells food
products to teachers at subsidized prices (above and beyond what is in
the rationing system). If they did that, at least I would not have to
sell candy," he adds.

The average salary of education professionals has hardly increased in
recent years. In 2013 it was 512 Cuban pesos, two years later, in 2015,
official data confirm that the average wage is 537 pesos, the equivalent
of about 21 Cuban convertible pesos (CUC) per month.

The current real wage, after deducting accumulated inflation, is
equivalent to only 28% of the 1989 purchasing power, according to
calculations by economist Carmelo Mesa-Lago.

Adrian's mother, Elisa, recalls the years when she began as a
"Makarenko" teacher (a collectivist method created by the Russian
pedagogue of the same name) in the '60s and says that the difficulties
now are nothing compared to what her generation experienced.

"We earned 87 pesos a month and to be a teacher you had to climb Pico
Turquino (the highest mountain in Cuba) and teach in very different
places. There is nothing like teaching, it is teaching a person to fly.
It's the best profession in the world. If I were born again I would be a
teacher again," she says.

In the past academic year 2015-2016, there were 4,218 fewer teachers
compared to the previous year. The trend has been accentuated since the
2008-2009 academic year in which official statistics begin to reflect
the massive hemorrhaging of educators.


Numbers of teachers in front of the classroom — 2005 to 2016. Source:
Statistical yearbook of Cuba.
"Despite the salary of teachers and the conditions in which they perform
their work, many remain in their posts. A driver in the city earns in
one week what an education professional earns in a month," says Elisa.

She receives a pension of 230 Cuban pesos a month, about 9 CUC. In the
afternoons she has a small group of six children that she tutors for the
price of 2 CUC per month each.

"I do it to help my son. We have to pay for the refrigerator, and life
has become very expensive: a liter of oil costs almost a quarter of my
retirement, and don't even talk about the price of milk. Luckily I have
an ulcer and they give me a ration of milk," says the teacher.

Every afternoon Adrian collects the 27 notebooks of his students to
review them carefully and correct the spelling mistakes. Jhonatán,
"a javaito (Afro-Cuban) who escaped the devil," helps him to carry them
home.

"That nine-year-old boy's mother was arrested because he was a
jinetera (a prostitute). He lives with his father who is an alcoholic
and who often beats him. The only signs of affection he receives are in
school," says Elisa.

"Being a teacher is not profitable but it teaches you to love," the
retired teacher says with emotion. "Sometimes Adriancito even buys the
boy shoes because he has nothing to wear to school."

Source: "Being A Teacher Is Not Profitable In Cuba But It Teaches You To
Love" – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/being-a-teacher-is-not-profitable-in-cuba-but-it-teaches-you-to-love/