The official newspaper Granma published a review of the first month of the 2026-2027 school year in Cuba that, despite its triumphalist framing, reveals an education system operating in a state of permanent emergency: power outages, a shortage of transportation, uniforms that are not arriving, and thousands of classrooms without a permanent teacher.
The Minister of Education, Naima Trujillo Barreto, acknowledged before the official body of the Communist Party that the conditions in September "are far from being the usual ones" and that each region had to find its own solutions to maintain school activities.
"It has been, more or less, what we expected, although it is very difficult to predict reality under the conditions we are facing," admitted the official, a phrase that inadvertently captures the essence of the state of the Cuban educational system.
The teacher shortage is the most serious and longstanding problem. As the school year began, the national teacher coverage stood at around 73%, with nearly 24,000 positions unfilled, according to data cited by Infobae. More than 380,000 students started the year without an assigned lead teacher.
The most affected provinces were Camagüey, with nearly 3,000 teachers missing to serve over 95,000 students in 690 schools, followed by Holguín, Matanzas, and Sancti Spíritus, each with more than 2,000 vacancies.
To fill the gap, the Ministry of Education turned to university students, reactivated retirees, and professionals from other sectors. Regarding the latter, the minister acknowledged that they need support due to changes in teaching methods: "We must help them all," she said.
The structural cause of this exodus is well-known: the salaries of Cuban teachers, set by Resolution 18/2026 at between 6,130 and 7,735 Cuban pesos per month, amount to less than 12 dollars at the informal exchange rate at the end of September.
The power outages exacerbated everything else. On the first day of classes, the National Electric Union forecasted a deficit of up to 2,310 MW during peak hours, with cuts affecting 70% of the country. A notable case: the Máximo Gómez primary school in Matanzas had accumulated over 23 days without electricity as of October 5, according to a report by Periódico Girón. The installation of a substitute transformer did not solve the problem because it had lower capacity and caused overloads.
Transportation affected attendance, particularly in rural and mountainous areas. In response, the MINED implemented an "intensive start-up concentration" from September 1 to October 3 to align content and adjusted schedules, allowing for double sessions in some centers.
That measure, presented by the authorities as a pedagogical solution, was described differently by a teacher of English at the Ramón López Peña secondary school, in San Cristóbal, Artemisa: "A way to cover up the fact that the school is falling apart," she stated, pointing out that the new schedule arrived without additional teachers, food, transportation, or electricity.
The list of deficiencies is further compounded by the lack of uniforms: only about 20% of the national enrollment received new school clothing at the start of the school year. The minister attributed the problem to the energy constraints that affected industrial production.
The immediate background worsens the situation. The 2025-2026 school year was ended early due to the energy crisis: special education closed in May and general education between June 15 and 30, before the scheduled end of the academic year.
Trujillo Barreto pointed out that in some areas, attendance exceeded initial forecasts, while in others, authorities are still working with families to reduce absenteeism. October, the minister stated, should consolidate what was learned in September—a promise that the Cuban educational system has been unable to fulfill for years.
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