What will characterize Cuba’s 2024 school year?

HAVANA, Cuba, Jan 11 (ACN) The 2024 academic year will feature six new technical programs that will give high-school graduates a chance to enter the higher education system, according to Deysi Fraga Cedré, general director of Undergraduate Studies of the Ministry of Higher Education (MES).

“Cuba counts on 50 higher education centers to develop undergraduate programs for 112 university degree courses and 64 high-level technical programs in various branches of science,” she remarked. “In 2024 we will stick to the two levels of higher education—short courses and university degree studies—as we move gradually to the traditional school calendar, so that we can guarantee the quality of our teaching processes and the return of young people to active military service, which the country needs.”

The official also pointed out that the plans for 2024 include the rearrangement of the syllabus and the permanent evaluation of methodological work in every school, as well as to increase ICT use without neglecting educational and political-ideological work among undergraduate students.

More than 289,000 students are expected to enter the Cuban education system in 2024, 270,000 of them in university courses and more than 12,000 in higher technical courses.

René Sánchez Díaz, MES’s director of Enrolment and Job Placement, stressed that Cuba is committed to help its young people by giving them the opportunity to learn and called on this sector of the population to strive to make the most of it.