“They made them clean and do other jobs where they don’t have people to do them”
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 23 September 2024 — The educational authorities of Cuba had announced that the new “school in the countryside,” with which several grades began the 2024-2025 school year on September 2, would last only 15 days, but a week before the end of September, there are still many students who are obliged to participate in the project, sold by the regime as a “link between study and work.” This is the case of Lucía, who is in eighth grade at a school in Luyanó (Havana) and who, after spending several weeks employed in different tasks, has to prepare a report in writing and present it orally, explaining everything that they did.
One of the questions she has to answer is “what is a school garden and why is it important?” despite the fact that they weren’t sent to any garden at any time. “I don’t know what there is to explain, if all they did was go to a childcare center to entertain the little kids with their cell phones,” explains Marian, Lucía’s mother. At first, she says, they made them go get lunch and snacks for the children, “but an inspector came and told them that they couldn’t do th