CIEGO DE ÁVILA.—The country has the necessary study materials and resources, including those which are imported, to commence the 2016-2017 school year this September 5, during which quality and rigor will be among the top priorities to strengthen the teaching/learning process.
At a meeting to analyse the outstanding needs of the upcoming academic year, Education Minister Dr. Ena Elsa Velázquez Cobiella noted that despite the economic constraints of the country, supplies of chalk, notebooks, pencils, other basic materials and textbooks have been guaranteed, with some of the latter currently being put together by the country’s printing and graphic communications industry, where great efforts have been made to produce materials to schedule.
The Minister stressed that students and teachers should take good care of school study materials and promote ways to save electricity and water, and reiterated that no school can open its doors in September if it finds itself in sanitary and epidemiological conditions which compromise the normal functioning of classes.
In the case of the province of Ciego de Ávila, the greatest concern is the exodus of teachers, with a shortage of 663. According to Bárbara Rodríguez Milián, provincial director of Education, these teaching posts with be covered by hourly contracted staff, a university contingent, methodologists and members of school management boards.
In this sense, Velázquez Cobiella referred to the importance of valuing the work of teachers in every school, municipality and province, an issue included in the documents adopted at the 7th Party Congress.
She acknowledged that the attitude toward students of teaching careers and educators has to be one of support, help and guidance, to ensure that they feel valued, and as one way of halting the mass departure of professionals from the field, which has affected Ciego de Ávila for several years.
