Paris, August 6, 2024. The “Casa Cuba” in Tremblay, France, offered an important space to discuss Cuba’s achievements in education. In her presentation on the subject, Dr. Silvia María Navarro Quintero, General Director of the Central Institute of Pedagogical Sciences, masterfully described the conception and development of the different levels of education in the country, from early childhood education to higher education, including special education, technical and professional education, adult education, and pedagogical training.
In this context, she highlighted the priority that the Cuban government gives to the education sector, to which it allocates a significant percentage of the national budget, despite the difficulties that the country faces resulting from the intensification of the blockade and the anti-Cuban measures and actions of the US government.
She also explained that, in Cuba, education is a right of all people, and constitutes a responsibility of the State, which guarantees free, affordable and quality education services for comprehensive training, from early childhood to postgraduate university education. In this sense, she emphasized the country's commitment to the fulfillment of the Sustainable Development Goals, in particular SDG4.
On the other hand, Dr. Navarro Quintero referred extensively to the ongoing process of the third Improvement of the National Education System, with the objective of making management styles, the curriculum, the work of educational institutions and modalities more flexible and contextual, strengthening the preparation of managers and teachers, giving great importance to the role of students, the family and the community in the life of educational institutions and modalities.
She also addressed the incorporation of Cuba into the study of the Laboratory for the Quality of Education (LLECE); as well as the recognition of Cuba's progress and achievements in this sector. She also confirmed Cuba's permanent willingness in matters of educational cooperation and its solidarity vocation to contribute to the development of other peoples in this sphere.
During her stay in Paris, Dr. Navarro Quintero completed a work agenda that included meetings with UNESCO's Assistant Director General for the Education Sector, Ms. Stefania Giannini, with the official of the UNESCO Regional Office in Chile who is currently at the Paris headquarters, Ms. Laetitia Courtois; as well as with the focal point for Latin America and the Caribbean of UNESCO's Strategic Partnerships Section, Mr. Ernesto Calderón.