Fotos

Education in Cuba has been a highly ranked system for many years. The University of Havana was founded in 1727 and there are a number of other well-established colleges and universities. Following the 1959 revolution, the Castro government nationalized all educational institutions, and created a system operated entirely by the government. Strong ideological content is present, with the constitution stating that educational and cultural policy is based on Marxist ideology.

Education expenditures continue to receive high priority, as Cuba spends 10 percent of its central budget on education, compared with 4 percent in the United Kingdom and just 2 percent in the United States, according toUNESCOAs shocking as the latter figure is, it pales in comparison with other data provided by the 1953 census for Cuban women overall. According to that census 87,522 women were working as domestic servants, 21,000 women were totally without employment and looking for work, and another 77,500 women were working for a relative without pay.

Moreover, an estimated 83 percent of all employed women worked less than ten weeks a year, and only 14 percent worked year-round. These were the far more shocking realities of the uneven development induced by the US empire and Cuban capital on the island, although they may not be as risqué and exciting to North American and European observers, whether left or right, interested in Cuban exoticism and difference.