Abstract

CASTRO, Claudio de Moura. Escolas feias, escolas boas?. Ensaio: aval. pol. públ. educ. [online]. 1999, vol.07, n.25, pp.343-354. ISSN 0104-4036.

There has been a large discussion and many doubts on the quality of Cuban schools. A research by OREALC/UNESCO solved this matter. Cuba has excellent schools, better than in the other Latin-American countries. The new question then is why Cuban schools are good schools? Assuming that those results were based on too short and superficial visits, and that, as such, they cannot be considered more than a speculation, this paper identifies a few factors that seem to explain the superior performance of Cuba. Teaching is serious and almost conventional. Sure, it is not by the presence of innovations or new miraculous solutions that quality is achieved. Buildings are horrible. Libraries are not up to date and the laboratories are old (but used very often). However, the school day is enormous, students stay many hours in school and the school year is long. Second teachers have a 40 hours week schedule, are very dedicated and well prepared It does not mean that teachers have a good salary, but they as much as engineers and doctors. And in a economy with limited alternatives, teaching becomes a central and valued occupation. What lessons could Latin-American countries learn from the Cuban experience? It is hard to reproduce the long school day and the competitiveness of the teaching profession vis-à-vis other ones that require the same level of education. But there are other more feasible lessons to be learned that are discussed in this essay.

Keywords : Education Quality; Teachers; Teacher's Salary; School Day; Cuba; Latin-America; Innovations.

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