The Miami Herald.
September 7, 2001.
HAVANA -- (AP) -- Cuban President Fidel Castro said Thursday the communist
island's schools could be improved, and wondered aloud if education might have
been better in his day.
During an event marking the start of the school year, he cited a spelling
test of 100 students in which only one spelled every word right and said Cubans
had forgotten the importance of learning history.
"We have some deficiencies ... not to mention the inefficiencies of our
secondary education,'' he said, adding that sometimes he asks himself "if
our studies in some areas wasn't better.''
The Cuban president, who rarely talks about himself, spoke fondly of his
school days some 70 years ago, often at Jesuit schools. He described how he
enjoyed religious studies and laughed as he recalled being kicked out of choir
because of his lack of music ability.
There were times, he said, when a child who misbehaved in school was forced
by his parents to get on his knees and endure beatings with a belt.
"I became an expert at hiding when the belt appeared,'' he said,
smiling.
Castro sat before hundreds of teachers and some students, fielding their
questions, listening to their concerns and talking to them for 10-hours, with a
one-hour break for lunch. During the event, broadcast live on state-run
television, he said the U.S. embargo against his country has kept the government
from meeting its goal of providing each school with televisions, computers and
videocassette recorders.
The Cuban government has eliminated illiteracy among the country's 11
million people and provides free education. However, officials admit that
students have sometimes suffered from a scarcity of teachers and rundown
schools.
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald | 
