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Rural Students Benefit from Computers,
Solar Panels
Patricia Grogg
PINAR DEL RIO, Cuba, (IPS) - ”My
kids didn't know what traffic lights
were. Now they even understand how they
work,” says the director of a childcare
centre in rural Pinar del Río province,
in western Cuba. The change is the
result of the arrival of technology to
remote towns.
Computers, televisions and video
players, so common in the cities, are a
novelty in some areas, and are having a
noticeable impact on education, say
teachers.
Children aged two to four incorporate
what they see on the classroom's
television into their play and games.
Florecitas de Café (Coffee Blossoms)
childcare centre, in the farming
community of San Andrés, in La Palma
municipality, was able to add TV and
video to its educational materials just
two years ago.
”It has opened a new world for them, and
they have learned a great deal from it,”
says Marisela Ortega, who oversees the
care of 63 children and a team of four
teachers and 10 assistants.
When they are five years old, the
children will be able enter preschool
and immediately begin computer classes.
Although the childcare centre has
conventional electricity available, a
solar water heater ensures that hot
water is available all day for the
children's hygiene, and has helped
improve the centre's general condition,
says Ortega.
Around 24 percent of the energy consumed
in Pinar del Río province, 120 km west
of Havana, comes from renewable sources,
such as solar and wind energy, or small
hydroelectric dams.
During the school year that ended in
July, 117,868 Cuban preschool children
had access to computers for at least 30
minutes each week.
According to official figures, more than
46,000 computers have been installed,
covering all educational levels and all
schools in the country. In addition,
12,800 computers were distributed to
Cuba's universities.
The World Bank report Global Development
Indicators 2002, states that Cuba had
10.7 computers for every 1,000
inhabitants in 2001, compared to 51.3
per 1,000 in Argentina, 44.1 in Brazil,
344.5 in Belgium and 4.9 in Kenya.
Bridging the technological divide
between rich and poor countries and
between urban and rural zones is one of
the purposes of the World Summit on the
Information Society, taking place next
week in Geneva, Dec. 10-12.
The Summit's Plan of Action states a
goal of connecting all universities and
hospitals in the world to the Internet
by 2005.
In another phase, up to 2010, all
villages and secondary schools should be
connected to the worldwide web, and by
2015, all primary schools are to have
Internet access.
With a population of 11.2 million, Cuba
has 2.8 million students in primary and
secondary schools,
technical-professional institutions and
universities. Education is controlled by
the state, is obligatory until the ninth
grade and is free.
However, the quality of the
socialist-run island's educational
system has been suffering a slow
decline.
The authorities hope to give education a
boost through the intensive use of
audiovisual media and information
technologies, and by reducing the number
of students per teacher, among other
reforms.
”We aspire to utilise these media, as
soon as possible, as instruments of
science and of the art of instructing
and educating,” President Fidel Castro
said recently.
These plans made electricity in rural
schools essential. Many are not covered
by the national electricity distribution
grid, although 95 percent of the
population has access to electrical
services.
According to government figures, 2,368
schools were provided with solar panels,
which convert the sun's energy into
electricity. Of those schools, 93 have
just one student.
At the Pedro Marrero School, in the
municipality of Consolación del Sur,
Yudalia Portal and Doramís Delgado, ages
10 and 9, respectively, are Carlos
Páez's two students in a classroom that
has a computer, television and video
player.
”Obviously, it does not replace the
teacher, but this equipment provides
excellent didactic support,” says Páez,
who twice a week opens the school's
doors in the evening so that families
from the surrounding community can watch
state-controlled TV programmes.
This type of collective use and benefit,
common in the hard-to-reach mountainous
areas, also ensures that families are
more committed to the education of their
children.
”We are the godparents of the school and
we help out wherever it is needed, but
in turn, we have the support of the
teacher,” says peasant farmer Juan
Alonso Hernández, Yudalia's grandfather.
His house was included in a programme
for providing electricity to some
100,000 homes across the island, not
through powerlines connected to the main
grid, but through solar panels.
”The sun in Cuba is incredible. Thanks
to solar energy I have lights and
television in my house and my
granddaughter is learning computer
skills in school,” he said.
Páez and other teachers believe that
these efforts are contributing to
reducing the technology gap between the
countryside and the city, and are
creating conditions so that people are
less likely to abandon rural areas.
This rural exodus has been striking. In
1999, Cuba's urban population was 8.4
million and the rural population was 2.7
million, compared to 1981, when 6.7
million lived in cities and three
million in the country, according to the
National Office of Statistics.
Teachers are finding that the new
technologies are ”irreplaceable factors”
in stimulating interest and motivation
among students, as well as independent
and critical thought and enthusiasm for
research.
”It is an enormous challenge to prepare
the younger generations for a world that
is increasingly competitive and
demanding of a well-trained labour
force,” teacher Daniel Barroso told IPS.
One out of five school-aged children
worldwide do not attend school, and
millions drop out of the educational
system without knowing how to read,
according to World Bank reports.
In Latin America, 20 percent of the
children begin their schooling late and
only 80 percent reach the fourth grade.
The regional average for years of
education is one of the lowest in the
world, says UNICEF (United Nations
Children's Fund).
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