Nurturing human nature through education in Cuba

👉🏽 This story is developed as part of the Doughnut Economics for Policymakers guide.

Cuba’s education system embeds environmental stewardship and collective values within it. Guided by national policies and strategies, the Cuban government invests heavily in education, provides guidelines, and cultivates societal networks where schools act as hubs to improve ecological resilience and social cohesion. This holistic education approach has contributed to social cohesion and ecological resilience.

Overview 

Cuba’s Constitution emphasises the role of education in cultivating societal values. Since the early 1990s, successive governments have enacted laws and policies that mandate environmental education and promoting experiential learning to foster solidarity and collaboration. Dedicated ministries oversee implementation, publish guidelines, and establish extensive training and peer-learning networks for educators.

As a result, schools function as collective problem-solving hubs where students engage in socio-cultural projects that build vocational skills while working alongside teachers and their community to address social and ecological challenges. Examples include projects to maintain school or community gardens that provide food for local families, or to repair and maintain school facilities.

Rooted in the ethos of the Cuban Revolution in 1950s, the government adopted this approach to counter inequality and ecological degradation.

Implementation

Since the success of Cuban Revolution in 1959, the government has taken steps to make education freely accessible in all corners of the country. There has been a consistent investment of over 10% of its GDP in education which has massively improved access and quality. While the Cuban education system has always emphasised collective stewardship, laws and guidelines have gone through major revisions since the 1950s. 

Impacts

There is limited research on the direct impact of Cuba’s evolving education system, but some evidence suggests that it has contributed to increased social cohesion and ecological resilience. For example:

Social impacts: 

• Gender Equity: Women comprise >60% of university graduates.
• High Literacy: 99.8% literacy rate, with rural access surpassing regional peers.
• Positive learning environment: High access to positive learning environments, with parents actively participating in their children’s education.

Ecological impacts: 

• Reforestation: Cuba has high quality education on forest disciplines, boasting more graduate students and master students than the sum of all its Caribbean neighbours. Forestry sector employment, both in the timber industry and in managing protected areas, is the largest in the Caribbean. This contributes to Cuba’s successful reforestation programme. 
• Urban Agroecology: There is an estimated 35,000 hectares of urban gardens in Cuba that engages students in sustainable farming.

Challenges

• Resource scarcity: The US embargo, in place since 1958, has caused shortages of textbooks and technology, as well as economic hardship that restricts the level of government investments in education. 
• Teacher shortages: Low salaries have caused a shortage of teachers, negatively impacting education quality.
• Centralisation risks: A centrally controlled curriculum may hinder the introduction of innovative approaches essential for keeping content current and engaging. An overemphasis on ideological conformity could also hinder critical thinking and open debate. 

Reference and further reading 

• A World Bank report analysing lessons and dilemmas of the Cuban educational system (2000).
• The Global Environmental Education Partnership's overview of Cuba’s environmental education system.
• A Conversation with Tania Morales de la Cruz, a professor of education at Cuba’s University of Matanzas (2016).
• Broken Chalk's independent review of Cuba’s education system (2023).

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