HAVANA, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- Cuban schools reopened their doors on Monday, welcoming back over 1.7 million students to classrooms as the 2018-2019 school year began.
President Miguel Diaz-Canel attended a ceremony held at the Rafael Maria de Mendive primary school in Havana, where national hero Jose Marti once attended classes, to mark the new term.
"The school year has begun well and will end better," said the president.
Following the Cuban Revolution of 1959, education on the island was nationalized, taken under government control, and became completely free.
"In Cuba, there are no children without a classroom or a school, and the beginning of the school year is a day of celebration for the country. It is an example of what a nation, with few resources but a great will, is able to achieve," he said.
There are 10,700 schools and 22 universities within the island's education system, employing some 156,000 teachers throughout the country.
This year, authorities will attempt to improve the education system but face a deficit of qualified teachers at the primary and secondary levels after many educators opted to move into better-paid work.
The education ministry aims to relieve the teacher shortage by hiring university students and reemploying retired professors.
With 250,000 students in higher education, Minister of Higher Education Jose Ramon Saborido, said there "guaranteed, substantial resources to ensure the quality of (primary and secondary) teaching, despite the complicated economic conditions in the country."
The United Nations believes the Cuban education system, which produces a literacy rate of 99.7 percent in the adult population, to be one of the best Latin America.
