Why Are Cuban Schools Better?

By Chloe Brown
September 25, 2008

Listen to an mp3 audio recording of this event.

The results UNESCO's recent regional assessment--the Second Regional, Comparative, and Explanatory Study (SERCE) exam--show that Cuban students scored far better than nearly all of  their Latin American peers in language, math, and science. Few Cuban students scored poorly, and large numbers excelled. This is a stark contrast to their peers in the rest of the region.

With this data in mind, PREAL and the Inter-American Dialogue hosted a discussion about Cuban education on September 25, 2008. Martin Carnoy, Stanford professor and economist, discussed the findings of his recent book entitled Cuba’s Academic Advantage: Why Students in Cuba Do Better in School. Eduardo Vélez, former Education Sector Manager for Latin America and the Caribbean at the World Bank, gave commentary.

Carnoy suggested that the social context on the island helped Cuban students learn more than other Latin American students. The Communist government has created an environment that provides Cubans with much better health care, less crime, and more income equality than the rest of the region. Further, the Cuban education system developed quite early in comparison to those in the rest of the region. Cuban parents and teachers are therefore more educated than the norm and have thus been able to do a better job at educating children.

The panelists emphasized that the quality of teachers plays a key role in the achievement of Cuban students. Vélez, in particular, noted that “the quality of the system cannot exceed that of its teachers.” In Cuba, said Carnoy, it is easy to attract capable candidates to the teaching profession because teacher salaries are comparable to those of other jobs, with the notable exception of black market work. Moreover, teacher training in Cuba is rigorous; it takes place in state-run teacher training institutions, where all future teachers learn an active pedagogy that focuses on how to teach the national curriculum. Once teachers graduate and begin working, the state holds them responsible for their performance, mainly through intensive monitoring and evaluation.

Carnoy and Vélez agreed that education in Cuba is based on a centralized system of control, and that while it doesn't allow for much teacher or school autonomy, it serves to ensure quality. “[The Cuban education system] is very hierarchical, but it works for low income kids,” said Carnoy. With strictly centralized directives and content, and one Communist party member on each school board, schools definitely form part of the state. Carnoy pointed out that this relationship is not entirely bad; it can serve to tackle failure quickly, and compensate for achievement deficits arising from bad parenting and dysfunctional families.

Stability also helps Cuban students learn more, noted Carnoy. Education policies on the island have been consistent over time, in part because ministers of education stay in power far longer in Cuba than in other countries. While other Latin American ministers of education average a paltry tenure of eleven months, they sometimes stay for decades in Cuba. This stability is also present in other parts of the education system. For example, schools are able to keep better track of their students partly because students and their families cannot switch homes (and therefore, schools) frequently. Student-teacher relationships also last longer. Cuban schools follow the Montessori method, in which students spend four to six years with the same primary school teacher.

Both Carnoy and Vélez were quick to point out that Cuban classrooms are also very efficient. Students spend four hours per day in class—the same as the Latin American average. Yet, according to Vélez, “the situation is drastically different” from the rest of Latin America because almost all class time is spent on task. Students also stay at school after lunch to participate in other activities with the teachers, thus forging better relationships and learning productive social skills. Vélez commented that Chapter 6 of the book, which places Cuba’s classroom experience in a comparative context, provided particularly useful insight.

While Veléz supported most of Carnoy's findings, he did offer some criticism. He disagreed with several of the conceptual arguments in Carnoy’s analysis on the determinants of education quality and took issue with the lack of Latin American analyses consulted in the book.

While the Cuban education system could offer many useful lessons to the rest of Latin America, especially on issues relating to teachers, its success may not be replicable. The Communist regime has created a unique social context for learning, eliminating income extremes and holding undisputed power over all other actors. This is central to the Cuban system’s success, but is unlikely to happen in other countries. Also, while primary achievement is undeniably excellent, the system may not produce the best students at the high school level. State control encourages indoctrination and limits critical thinking, argued participants.