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The province of Matanzas is reorganizing the end of the 2025-2026 school year with significant changes to the evaluation system at all levels of education, as a direct response to the fuel shortage affecting Cuba since January of this year.
Officials from the Provincial Directorate of Education explained the measures adopted to the newspaper Girón, the official media outlet of the province.
According to Ariel Luis Surí, General Director of Basic Education, and Nicasio Comas Vázquez, General Director of Upper Secondary Education, the course will conclude in July as per the schedule set by the Ministry of Education, though with adjustments that will impact everything from primary education to pre-university levels.
The fuel deficit, which has changed education since the beginning of the energy crisis, has forced a reevaluation of how more than 90,000 students enrolled in the 504 educational facilities in the province are assessed.
In Primary Education, several subjects replace their final exams with systematic assessments or practical work. Second and fourth grade will not participate in the verification exercise.
Fifth and sixth grades will also not have final exams: in fifth grade, Natural Sciences and Geography will culminate with an integrative practical assignment, while Spanish Language and Mathematics will conclude with partial assessments. "The contents are from the third term because the previous ones were evaluated without difficulties," Surí specified.
In Basic Secondary, subjects such as Labor Education, Computer Science, Physical Education, and Arts Education have already finalized their grades in March.
Mathematics, Spanish-Literature, and History of Cuba will have a written final exam, while Biology and Geography will conclude with a joint integrative seminar, and Chemistry and Physics will have independent seminars.
One of the most significant changes affects admission to the Vocational Pre-University Institute of Exact Sciences (IPVCE): there will be no entrance exams, and a municipal ranking will be established.
The other requirements remain in place, along with the direct granting to winners of provincial science competitions.
In Upper Secondary Education, the twelfth grade was concentrated at the René Fraga Moreno Provincial Pedagogical School to prepare for the final exams in Mathematics, Spanish, and History, postponed to June.
Tenth and eleventh grade students with poor attendance were also transferred to that center starting April 20 to catch up on content. "We had to combine this to design differentiated support," explained Comas Vázquez.
In pre-university education, the final Physics exam in the tenth grade is replaced by a practical problem-solving assignment, and the Biology exam in the eleventh grade by an equivalent practical assignment.
The situation in Matanzas contrasts with what happened in Havana, where in March classes were suspended in all educational centers due to the electricity crisis.
Matanzas then chose to implement its own strategies to maintain continuity, a decision that has now reached its final phase with these evaluative adjustments.
The fuel crisis that has prompted these measures worsened following the interruption of Venezuelan supplies and the fire at the Nico López refinery in February.
Cuban university students have also demanded solutions in response to the indefinite suspension of in-person classes decreed by the Ministry of Higher Education since that same month. The UN reported in April a systemic humanitarian impact with a plan to assist two million people in 63 municipalities across eight provinces of the country.
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