Education

Cuban students return to in-person schooling after Covid-19 hiatus

Havana, Nov 8 (EFE).- Around 612,000 students at elementary, middle and professional-technical schools in Cuba returned to their classrooms on Monday after a year-and-a-half pause triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Among those resuming in-person instruction to complete the 2020-2021 school year are sixth-grade students at elementary schools and those enrolled in basic secondary instruction, special education programs, the first years of pre-university study, teacher training schools and technical and professional training programs.

The policy shift follows the completion of a multi-stage, mass immunization drive in which children and young people between the ages of two and 18 received the complete three-dose regimen of a Cuban Covid-19 vaccine.

More than 90 percent of students in the Communist-ruled island’s school system were administered either the Abdala vaccine developed by Cuba’s Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology or the Soberana 02 vaccine produced by the Finlay Institute, a Cuban epidemiological research institute, Education Minister Ena Elsa Velazquez said last Friday.

She explained that the return to in-person schooling has been a process coordinated with the Public Health Ministry. EFE

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