Less than a week before the start of the 2026-2027 school year, scheduled for September 1, Facebook groups like "Cuban Fighting Mothers 2" have become platforms for widespread denunciation: women from across the island are demanding uniforms, backpacks, shoes, and snacks that the State cannot provide.
The Minister of Education, Naima Ariatne Trujillo Barreto, publicly acknowledged that only 20% of the national enrollment will receive new uniforms when classes start.
The textile production reached between 2.2 and 2.3 million garments against a national demand of 3.6 million, according to official statements collected by the government-affiliated Granma. This means that eight out of ten Cuban students will start the year without a new uniform.
The scarcity is not uniform across the country: in Ciego de Ávila, the authorities prioritized the distribution only for preschool, fifth, and seventh grades, leaving out the rest of the years. In Holguín, only 53% of the uniforms for early grades was secured by August 22.
One of the most talked-about cases on social media was that of Claudia Leidys, a mother from the Havana neighborhood of Alamar, who according to a report by Cuba Bajo Lupa stood in line for six hours —from 7:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.— only to receive a clothing item in an enormous size for her fifth-grade son.
He was unable to resolve his youngest son's uniform issue because his name did not appear on the administrative lists.
The issue of inadequate sizes is not new either. During the 2025-2026 school year, managers in the textile industry had already acknowledged complaints because not enough small sizes were delivered to the country. In Matanzas, mothers reported extremely large uniforms for primary school children that rendered the garment useless.
Given the magnitude of the deficit, the regime authorized students to attend classes without uniforms and adjusted the schedules according to the conditions of each school, measures that families consider insufficient.
The discontent on social media goes beyond clothing. Several mothers warned on Facebook that they will not send their children to school unless minimum conditions of electricity, food, and rest are guaranteed, in a context of prolonged power outages, food scarcity, and widespread deterioration of school infrastructure.
The phrase that circulated on social media as a summary of the collective sentiment says it all: "A lot of will, few conditions."
The uniform deficit recurs year after year. For the 2025-2026 school year, many students attended with inherited uniforms and shared notebooks between subjects, a situation that is likely to be repeated this September as the State fails to meet even half of the actual demand.
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