Cuba works hard to reduce deficit of educators at day-care centers

HAVANA, Cuba, Mar 31 (ACN) In order to face the some 300 day-care center educators shortage in the province of Camagüey, the Education department works to recruit young people to enroll in a Pedagogical Auxiliary Course.

In order to respond to the 2,000 pending cases of children from zero to six years of age of working mothers, the members of Federation of Cuban Women and Committees for the Defense of the Revolution are talking to young girls 17 years of age and older to enroll in these courses.

Miriam Arcaya, head of the Department of Pre-School Education in the territory, told the ACN that the identification of the girls that are unemployed and with skills to train as educators, requires the help of all the factors of society, because until today only 60 showed willingness to become day care educators.

She emphasized that the day care centers were created in Cuba to promote the full integration of working women and, as part of the first subsystem of education, plays an important role in the training of children from the earliest ages.

Presently, at the Nicolás Guillén Batista Pedagogical School in the territory, 216 pre-school educators are being trained for four years, 40 of whom will graduate this year, said Graciela Álvarez, Secretary General.

With almost 33 years dedicated to the care and education of children, Mariluz Valverde, educator of the Children's Circle Sol Luminoso, of this city, identified the insufficient salary as the main cause of demotivation to carry out this work that requires a lot of dedication to children.

She argued that young women graduates as pedagogical assistants or graduates in Early Childhood Education when they begin to work receive between 300 and 400 pesos a month.

The overload for those stay in the job is greater, although for this reason we are paid 150 pesos more at the end of the month, but on the other hand they eliminated the compensation for overtime, stressed the educator.

Likewise, she said that the instructors of music, plastic arts and computer science, who are full-time supporting the educational processes in the halls, are not economically stimulated with any variant.

The solution of the deficit of educators in this level of education is directly intertwined with the possibility of the entrance of more children in the day care centers
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According to a recent report on the characterization of the education system in the province of Camagüey, 12,581 teachers are employed at the school level, of which 80.3 per cent are women, and education with a greater women presence is preschool, almost all with 99.5 percent.