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A school in Camagüey posted a public notice seeking teachers for various subjects, a scene that confirms the collapse of the Cuban education system and the government's inability to retain teaching staff.
Through his profile on Facebook, the Cuban journalist José Luis Tan Estrada shared an image of the sign posted at the Pepito Mendoza García secondary school, located in the Agramonte region, where job opportunities for teachers are being offered.
The call includes the need for teachers in key subjects such as Mathematics, Spanish, and History, which reflects the depth of the teaching deficit.
The image of the notice, which began circulating among parents and neighbors, highlights that the lack of teachers has evolved from being a temporary issue to a structural deficiency.
In the face of empty classrooms, schools resort to makeshift calls that replace any educational planning with the urgency of filling schedules.
In the comments on the post, several users recalled that this situation has been ongoing for years and has been getting worse.
Former university students recounted how they were "hired" to teach classes while still students themselves, even in high-performance academic centers, while educational authorities suggested using first-year students as teachers, in the name of the system's "survival."
Other testimonies pointed directly to the causes of the exodus, such as salaries that do not cover basic needs, delayed payments, and electronic transactions that are impossible to cash regularly, institutional pressure to inflate promotions, and a growing professional disillusionment.
"One cannot live on love," summarized a former teacher who left the classroom after witnessing untrained individuals being placed in front of the students.
Parents and citizens agree that the crisis is not limited to a single school or to Camagüey. Secondary schools, pre-university institutions, and even emblematic centers face the same reality, while many teachers are opting for informal jobs, the private sector, or emigration.
For several commentators, the decline in education is part of a broader collapse of the state sector, characterized by low wages, an aging population, and a complete lack of incentives.
The province of Camagüey began the 2025-2026 school year with a deficit of over 2,000 teachers, a critical situation that highlights the system's inability to provide complete classes for approximately 98,000 enrolled students.
Likewise, Matanzas started the school year with 2,033 teaching positions unfilled across all levels of education, a number similar to what Sancti Spíritus needed, which began classes with only 68% teacher coverage.
The 2024-2025 school year has begun in Cuba with a deficit of 24,000 teachers, set against a backdrop of significant migratory exodus, soaring inflation, and low salaries in Cuban pesos, at a time when the government is intensifying the dollarization of the economy, which discourages retention in most of the poorly paid positions in the state sector.
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