Cuba's Education Crisis Deepens as Díaz-Canel Suggests "Spiritual Care" for Teachers

During this week's annual report of the Ministry of Education (MINED) held in Havana, Miguel Díaz-Canel once again resorted to rhetoric that seems disconnected from Cuba’s harsh reality. In his speech, broadcast by the National Television News (NTV), the seasoned leader suggested providing teachers with increased "spiritual, emotional, and material attention." This suggestion feels almost surreal against the backdrop of Cuba’s rapidly deteriorating educational system.

As thousands of educators leave their positions due to mass migration, inadequate salaries, and a lack of basic conditions necessary for teaching, the regime's head offers "spirituality" as a remedy instead of implementing structural reforms. Many in Cuban society received this hollow statement with skepticism and frustration, recognizing it as another attempt by the regime to mask the collapse of the educational sector with empty, sweetened rhetoric.

The Crisis in Cuban Education: Low Wages, Teacher Exodus, and Educational Decline

Cuba is experiencing one of its deepest educational crises since 1959, marked by a widespread shortage of teachers exacerbated by mass migration, insufficient pay, lack of educational materials, and the burden of political-ideological tasks. Numerous reports highlight the state's failure to ensure quality education. Underpaid educators, facing precarious living conditions and lacking real incentives, have turned to informal employment, emigrated, or simply abandoned the profession. In many schools, a single teacher must manage multiple grades, improvise lesson content, and compensate for the lack of institutional resources through personal effort.

Despite this, the ministerial review highlighted "achievements" and "strategies" that neither represent a structural improvement of the system nor alleviate the widespread collapse of an education system that, along with Public Health (now in shambles), was once touted as one of the pillars of the so-called "revolution." Furthermore, Díaz-Canel's "continuity" has perpetuated the investment pattern of previous decades, with the Cuban State disproportionately prioritizing the tourism sector over public services like health and education.

Exploiting "Spirituality" for Propaganda

Díaz-Canel's reference to "spiritual care" is not an isolated statement. Since assuming the presidency in 2018, the figurehead of "continuity" has persistently woven the concept of "spirituality" into his narrative, attempting to reconnect with a population weary of regime propaganda and exhausted by the systemic crisis gripping the nation. For instance, in December 2023, he invoked "spiritual forces" to "save the revolution," a speech that underscores how far the leadership has replaced real solutions with symbolic formulas verging on the esoteric.

In September 2022, he emphasized the need to "work on people's spirituality" to maintain social cohesion. A year earlier, he even claimed that the Communist Party seeks "spiritual prosperity and wealth," starkly contradicting the material, cultural, and ethical impoverishment that has occurred under his leadership.

However, these declarations lose all legitimacy when confronted with reality. The Cuban regime, directly responsible for the nation’s spiritual and cultural decay, has censored artists, repressed intellectuals, imprisoned young people for dissent, and punished academic, press, and expression freedoms. How can a state that punishes political dissent, imprisons journalists, and persecutes independent educators proclaim itself a defender of spirituality? What sense does it make to speak of "spirituality" when cultural spaces are closed, teachers are expelled for not aligning ideologically, and education is transformed into a tool of indoctrination?

Continued Authoritarianism with a Sentimental Facade

The regime's use of "spirituality" is also a strategy to whitewash authoritarianism, giving it a veneer of apparent humanistic sensitivity that does not match reality. This type of discourse seeks to mask repression with sugary messages, portraying leaders as "concerned" with the emotional well-being of the people, while social control mechanisms remain intact.

In April 2018, shortly after assuming the presidency, Díaz-Canel visited recreational centers at night in Sancti Spíritus to "see how young people were enjoying themselves," expressing satisfaction with local authorities' efforts "for the people's spiritual enjoyment." That same year, Yusam Palacios, a propagandistic figure of the regime, went as far as to call Raúl Castro the "spiritual guide of Cuba," a term that caused astonishment even within circles loyal to the system, given the almost mystical character it intended to bestow on a leader responsible for decades of repression.

In 2020, Deputy Minister of Culture Fernando Rojas claimed that Cubans "owe their spiritual development to the revolution," ignoring that it was precisely the "revolution" that suffocated spaces for free thought, censored independent philosophical currents, and impoverished the artistic landscape with its totalitarian cultural vision.

Díaz-Canel's words about providing "spiritual care" to teachers are yet another expression of the disconnect between official rhetoric and the country's reality. Instead of offering tangible solutions to salvage the educational system, the regime offers abstractions, while the exodus of teachers, school precariousness, and professional discouragement continue to erode one of the most sensitive sectors of Cuban society. Cuba does not need more rhetoric about "spirituality." It needs fair wages, academic freedom, genuine investment in educational infrastructure, and, above all, a break from the political model that has destroyed the foundations of a cultured, dignified, and free nation.