The Cuban Education is not an Utopia
By Carmen Lluch Arocha
The educational sphere has been one of the most harmful ones, since the economical, hostile blockade was imposed in 1959.
Since the triumph of the Revolution in January the first, the direction of the Cuban government accomplished sets of relevant achievements in this area. We can find among them: the well-known Campaign of Literacy, where the main objective was, with an arduous work, to reach the sixth and ninth degrees. At present, “The University for Everybody” in a television-broadcasted variant, constituting another remarkable success of our Socialist system.
This important educative battle, has been carried out, because of the outstanding human will Cubans have. At schools we are lacking pencils, notebooks, paper, the impression of textbooks and complementary bibliographies, also the equipment of laboratories of specialities like Physics, Chemistry, Biology and the scholar shops
It has also limited the acquisition of machines for the Braille system; wheelchairs for physical disable people, the constructive preservation of the day- care centers and the replacement of the school furniture. Together with this, the evident deterioration of the transportation dedicated to the movement of students.
Since 1961 up to now, the great quantity of damages caused by this genocide blockade, are estimated in 79 thousand millions dollars, and most of them belong to the educational sphere.
The bigger of the Antilles is one of the few countries in the world that doesn’t have access to any International Financial Bank, what forces us to buy in the international market under very unfavourable conditions.
Nevertheless, we have well-prepared technicians and specialists, and a very important thing, the strong wishes Cubans get to continue developing the revolutionary educational process. Living under the conflicting politics of the administration of the US for many years has strengthened us. We are able enough to show the whole world that the Cuban education is not a senseless process.

No Lose Ends in Cuban Education System

By Mariagny Taset Aguilar
Luis Ignacio Gomez Gutierrez, the Cuban minister of Education, addressed an audience gathered on Wednesday at the Havana Convention Center for a national meeting on Pedagogy. The event will run through Friday and aims to define problems in different areas of teaching and find work strategies to address them in the coming school year.
“We have to ensure that every child born in Cuba successfully passes through all the different school levels designed to provide them with a comprehensive education, so that tomorrow they become professionals and integral parts of society. To achieve this, we must find any weak links —which in our country are fundamentally subjective— throughout the national territory, to be able to maintain this chain of education,” said the Education minister.
Two of the areas that will be addressed at the meeting are trying to find ways to improve early education (from birth to three-years-old), and how to provide better care to those in need of special education or children who come from families with social disadvantages.
The first day of the gathering produced recommendations on how to improve the quality of education in special and preschool education. It was agreed that one of the biggest challenges in preschool education is to standardize the education program and ensure higher worker standards. In this area, it was noted that changes have been initiated to improve family services, particularly daycare centers, which currently are only meeting 40 percent of demand.
Today, education experts will discuss the area of pre-university and technical education.

Cuba is One Big University

By Gabriel Davalos
The right of everyone to higher education is a remarkable achievement of Cuba’s university system, said Juan Vela Valdes, the minister of Higher Education.
Vela told those gathered for the thirtieth anniversary of the ministry that, besides its network of 65 centers, university classes are taught at 3,150 locals in the country’s 169 municipalities. He said that President Fidel Castro’s dream to turn Cuba into one big university is now a reality.
The minister, who took the post last month after serving as the rector of the University of Havana, noted that Cuba’s 800,000 university graduates, of a current population of 11.2 million, is a major accomplishment towards the country’s present and future.
“Since the Ministry of Higher Education was founded 30 years ago there have been changes. Registration is totally free, a scholarship plan was introduced, cafeterias opened, and university education was extended to each municipality,” said Vela.
At the ceremony, Fernando Vecino Alegret, who headed the Ministry of Higher Education during its first 30 years, was presented with a Diploma of Recognition and a card as Member of Honorary of the Federation of University Student.
After a prolonged applause, Vecino Alegret thanked all the “anonymous heroes” who have made possible the many accomplishments of higher education in Cuba.
Past and present university rectors and ministry employees also received recognition.
Mercedes Lopez Acea, member of the Communist Party Central Committee Secretariat, Jose Miyar Barruecos, secretary of the Council of State, Luis Ignacio Gomez, minister of Education, and leaders of youth, student and labor organizations participated at the event.

Cuba to Open 500 Social-Education Sites

Havana, August 22 (Prensa Latina).- More than 500 social and education building works will soon be inaugurated in Cuba, Otto Rivero, vice president of the Council of Ministers, reported Tuesday.
Of that number, over 100 educational centers, including the Informatics Technical Colleges in eastern Guantanamo Province, will be finished before the beginning of the forthcoming academic year.
Rivero noted the remaining social works should conclude by December 2, the 50th anniversary of the landing of the Granma expedition led by Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

No enemy can defeat us.

Affirms Raúl in a statement to Granma. He affirmed that Fidel continues to improve and thanked people for the thousands of messages of solidarity and support from our country and abroad. Measures have been taken to prevent any attempt at aggression. The people are giving a conclusive demonstration of confidence in themselves.


Comrade Raúl, our people joyfully received the message and photographs of the Comandante en Jefe published in the press and the subsequent television report of the encounter with president Chávez. Nevertheless, taking advantage of this opportunity, it would be greatly appreciated by millions of people who have attentively followed information on the state of health of compañero Fidel, to hear your personal assessment, as someone always so united to him.

Without any doubt, what most interests all of us at this time is the Jefe’s health.
On behalf of all the people, I will begin by congratulating and thanking the doctors and the other compañeros and compañeras who have attended to him in an excellent manner, with an unsurpassable professionalism and, above all, with much love and dedication. This has been a very important factor in Fidel’s progressive recovery.

Moreover, I think that his exceptional physical and mental nature has also been essential to his satisfactory and gradual recovery.

I think that we Cubans have shown during these days that we all share that conviction.

I agree with you, and that is why I conclude by ratifying my congratulations to the Cuban people for their overwhelming demonstration of confidence in themselves; a demonstration of maturity, serenity, monolithic unity, discipline, revolutionary consciousness and — put this in capital letters — FIRMNESS, which reminded me of the conduct of the Cuban people during the heroic days of the so-called Missile Crisis in October 1962.

They are the fruits of a Revolution whose concept Fidel summed up in his speech of May 1, 2000, in 20 basic ideas that constitute the quintessence of ideological political work. They are the results of many years of combat that, under his leadership, we have waged. Let nobody doubt, as long as we remain like that, no enemy will be able to defeat us. •

Taken from Granma.
http://www.granma.cu

Unforgettable visit. Chavez y Havana with Fidel

Chavez president met Fidel in Havana, to celebrate his 80th birthdayl. It was a touching encounter that lasted around 3 hours in whit both chief executives shared stories laghs and gifts. Once again Cuba and Venezuela narrowed the friendship bows.

Message of Fidel

When arriving at its 80 years of age, the Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro sends an encouraging message on his state of health: it has improved considerably.

He assures that the country marches perfectly well: "To all those that wished me good health, I promise them that I will fight for it."

Dear compatriots and friends of Cuba and the rest of the world:

Nowadays 13 I have already arrived at 80 years of age.
To say that the objective stability has improved considerably is not to invent a lie. To affirm that the period of recovery will last little and that there is not risk, would be absolutely incorrect.

I suggest all being to them optimistic, and simultaneously to be always ready to face any adverse news.

To the town of Cuba, infinite gratitude by its affectionate support. The country marches and will continue marching perfectly well.

To my companions of fight, eternal glory to resist and to win to the empire, demonstrating that a better world is possible.

Today, 13 of August, I feel very happy.

To all those that wished my health, I promise to them that I will fight by her.

Again the empire failed against the truth when leaving annulled the desición that took 3 judges the 9 from August of the last year to eliminate the 5 heroes sentences . Now again the empire is demstrate his hegemonia and its great power.

It is hour of which they fulfill the established thing in the constitution and they do not vilen but.

Song by The Peace and Fidel.

A song by The Peace and Fidel was tomorrow made in times of the night in the Antimperialist Tribune Jose Martí, Havana to celebrate the 80 birthday of Fidel and to request justice by the horrible crimes committed by the empire.

All the youth of the capital is summoned to participate.

The OCLAE

Four decades have passed since the 11 of August of 1966 arose the Latin American and Caribbean Continental Organization from Students, as movilizadora and coordinating instance of the anti-imperialist fights of the student movement of Latin America and the Caribbean. The OCLAE has played a significant role in the impulse of actions in favor of the reform and the democratization of the education, the eradication of the illiteracy, the development of the unit, the bonds of solidarity between the students of the continent and by the conquest and the defense of the legitimate rights and vindications of these, as well as against the distorting foreign penetration in the universities.

Like an ample and deeply democratic platform, during these years it has caused academic interchanges and lawyer by the education between all the population without discrimination some, and one has been against to the drug consumption and the drug trafficking. This organization is registered of the historical commitment of the students with the aspirations of national liberation and independence of the towns and the ideals of peace, in her ampler sense, of all the progressive humanity.

In their support to the rightest causes, the OCLAE has openly showed their solidarity with the five Cuban political prisoners who unjustly remain jailed in the United States, to those who he granted to the order Jose to them Rafael Varona by his extraordinary example like patriotic fighters, revolutionaries and. As well, it has promoted intense mobilizations against the neoliberal policies and the external indebtedness that affect the region, and his repercussions in the social agravamiento of the evils.

Taken from the Magazine We are Jovenes.
http://www.somosjovenes.cu

Dignity defended

Pedro of the sickle honest Attitudes that reveal an unequivocal ethical election reveals in the numerous adhesions that endorse the declaration the sovereignty of Cuba must be respected, put in circulation Monday by more than 400 intellectuals and public personalities of half hundred of countries. Yesterday the companies were more than 1 900. Gerard depardieu, famous french actor. Hardly to know the content the document, in which one demands the Government of the United States to abstain from any action against the Island and calls to prevent a new aggression at all costs, they added its companies recognized actors Gerard Depardieu of France; and Gael Garci'a Bernal of Mexico and Rodrigo of the Serna, Argentinean, protagonists of films of Brazilian Walter Salles, Newspapers of motorcycle, on the traveling Latin American youth of the Che Guevara. Gael García Bernal, ONE OF THE MOST RECOGNIZED MEXICAN ACTORS AT THE PRESENT TIME. Also the famous philosopher and Italian esteta printed their heading Gianni Váttimo, one of the zenithal figures of the debate on the call postmodernismo; and the North American thinker Emmanuel Wallerstein, author of diligent critical tests on the political philosophy and the practice of its country. From Puerto Rico, the call received a stirring adhesion: "My husband, Filiberto Ojeda Rivers, of not to be assassinated by the FBI, would be today signing this uprising. My greeting and my better desires of recovery for the companion Fidel I castrate ". The company Elma Pink Beatriz Barbosa, widow of the independentista fighter boricua.

The sovereignty of Cuba must be respeted.

As a result of the communication of Fidel I castrate on its state of health and the provisional delegation of their positions, stops American civil employees have formulated more and more explicit declarations about the immediate future of Cuba. The Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez thought that "the moment arrived from a true transition towards a true democracy" and the spokesman of the White House Tony Snow said that his government is "ready and anxious to grant humanitarian attendance, economic and from another nature to the town of Cuba", which finishes being reiterated by President Bush.

Already the "Commission for a free Cuba", presided over by the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, was outstanding in a report in the middle of June "the urgency to work today to guarantee that the strategy of succession of the regime of I castrate is not successful" and President Bush indicated that this document "demonstrates not simply that we are working actively by a change in Cuba, hoping to that it happens".

The Department of State has emphasized that the plan includes measures that will remain secret "for reasons of national security" and to assure its "effective accomplishment". It is not difficult to imagine the character of such measures and the "announced attendance" if one considers the militarization of the foreign policy of the present American administration and its performance in Iraq.

Before this increasing threat against the integrity of a nation, La Paz and the security in Latin America and the world, the down signatory ones we demanded that the government of the United States respects the sovereignty of Cuba. We must prevent a new aggression at all costs.