The living room of Danay’s house is today, once again, a classroom in which her eight-year-old son, Antonio, receives classes through the television. The times when you hear an imperative “Shhhhhhh!” of someone who demands silence so that nothing interferes between the student and the teleprofessor. Once again days in which some mothers and fathers have to impose themselves so that their son attends “school”; days when grandparents may be deprived of watching a TV program because the child or adolescent is responsible for audiovisual material; afternoons-nights in which the most skilled of the home help their students to do their homework …

Routines that the Cuban family already knows, because as a consequence of the expansion of the coronavirus in the country, face-to-face teaching activities in the national territory were suspended and the Ministry supported by the company Cinesoft and the ICRT resorted to the alternative of teleclass transmission through the Educational Channel and other platforms, to give continuity to the teaching-educational process and overcome the contents of the stage.

In a population like ours, -very sociable-, these forms of learning orientation, although they are not new, still generate some resistance because it is true that nothing like being able to attend the traditional school in the company of other students and the teacher, ” the soul of the school ”. However, it is an option that, when properly implemented, brings great opportunities and results. It was for this reason that on May 9, 2002, when very few countries in the world had one, Fidel founded the Educational Channel.

Oriented to the education of all Cubans, especially to the transmission of teleclasses, between 7 in the morning and 5 in the afternoon to educational centers throughout the country, this channel, through its billboard, contributed to the elevation of the quality of education, at that time greatly affected by objective and subjective problems, to which the Commander referred in his speech at the official opening ceremony of the 2002-2003 school year, on September 16, 2002.

“For various reasons, for example, the number of young people who applied to enter the Pedagogical Institutes to become Graduates in Primary Education decreased. Hundreds of classrooms in the capital had more than 40 students, the average was 37. The vast majority of teachers had between 15 and 30 years of graduates. Schools would one day almost abruptly be left without the most experienced and qualified teachers. In secondary schools, a growing shortage of specialized teachers for eleven, twelve and thirteen subjects per grade. A single class session for many students. Reductions in the content of the subject to be taught. I only mention some difficulties (…)

“In the battle of ideas, every day precisely among us arose new ideas; each one engendered others (…) Perhaps the most important thing was the idea of using the mass media and audiovisual and computer equipment to impart knowledge to children, adolescents and adults in schools and homes. The use of television and video as audiovisual media of great impact in primary and secondary education became widespread. There is currently one television per classroom throughout the country: 81,169, and one video for every 100 students. Last year 44,790 computers were introduced and more than 12,000 young teachers were trained to teach this teaching.

The idea of extending university education to any corner of the country – as a necessity imposed by the tens of thousands of emerging teachers and professors, social workers, art instructors, workers and technicians in higher-level training courses, students of the plans to the comprehensive training of young people and other programs under development, many of whom will have to continue university studies from their jobs and places of residence — will also have enormous importance ”.

Almost two decades after the beginning of the implementation of these programs of the Battle of Ideas, Cuba endorses the fidelista strategy of the teleprofessors, the teleclasses, now together with other teaching methods to give continuity to the teaching-educational process. Perhaps many question the effectiveness of these means, but just as then, the clarification that the classes in audiovisual support are carried out by very competent Cuban teachers is valid.

Thanks to the foresight capacity of Fidel, – founder of the Educational Channel and manager of many other forms of learning orientation -, today Antonio and thousands of Cuban students of different teachings, can continue their studies from their “home classrooms.”