Massive Fraud Causes Cancellation of University Entrance Exams in Cuba
HAVANA TIMES (dpa) — The theft of university admission math exam in Cuba has forced the authorities to overturn at least one test and program its repetition in Havana, according to information released today by the official daily “Granma.”.
The cancelled exam for students seeking to study at universities was given on May 6, according to reports. The test should be repeated on Monday May 26.
The massive fraud associated with the filtration of the tests is part of an illegal network of selling exams, stated the Cuban Ministry of Education.
The theft involves three university professors, the statement said without elaborating.
The fraud in Havana also pertained to the subjects of Spanish and History, although in both cases the authorities detected the exam theft beforehand the test date.
“It has been determined that unscrupulous people stole the exams despite measures (security) adopted and, in the case of Havana, the math test was in the hands of a group of students,” the statement said.
This was not the first time that such fraud is recorded in Cuba. In June 2013 the authorities also annulled the results of a regional pre-university exam in Havana due to a similar robbery.
In part owing to the low income of the state sector, theft is rampant in state institutions and businesses in Cuba. Many workers steal anything that can be sold on the black market to augment their insufficient salaries. President Raul Castro has made fighting corruption one of the central themes of his agenda.
When the hero of the Revolution sent a company of soldiers to seize the property of successful Cuban businessmen, such as the Bacardi distillery, what message did that send? That theft is ideologically justified.
When the Cuban government idolizes an Argentine sociopath, no wonder the people have all the wrong heroes.
It goes deeper than that. The neighborhood con is the neighborhood hero. There is little or no social stigma attached to petty criminality. There is no “grandma” to look down her reading glasses at you clucking her tongue to make one feel bad for ‘resolving’. When Dads come home with a bag of frozen chicken that “fell off the truck” in front of their children, what lesson are they teaching them. The best dressed, prettiest girl in high school with the iPhone is probably a prostitute. Most Cubans have all the wrong heroes.
How many Cubans can survive on their salaries? How many legal ways are there for Cuban people to “resolver” their needs each month?
The system forces people to be corrupt by necessity.
It’s a problema of the monopolic state system in economy, politics, education and cultural. It’s a consecuence of the low salaries, paid by the state, of lack of controls bythe comunity over education, of the lack of democracy in the society to elect the people to direct popular power in cities and in the countryside. Another problem is that cubans don’t participate in the formation of the regional budget nor in its control. There are not participative budgets. The regional budget is determined by the central goverment.
We can see this quite widespread fraud involving teachers, students, parents, who are not separated from the rest of the social, economic and political problems we face. It is cause or consequence? Should it be fought with speeches or actions? Just think about it.
Another example of how pervasive corruption has become in Cuba. From the economy over medicines to education and the wider society.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Even in secondary schools exams are sold for hard cash.
The author is rights that the low income and resulting hardship is a large factor. Another equally important and maybe even more disconcerting factor is the destruction a sense of morality. Cuba’s “new man” has taken on corruption as part of daily life something that will plague Cuban society for at least another generation.
Some may disagreed but Cuban professional are in general well
prepared, that’s my opinion, however academic fraud is widespread in Cuba and
very deep in the Cuban way of thinking. I know of students going to the final
exam in primary school already knowing
the exam, seen teachers in front of the entire class given the answers to all students
in one go (7 out of 9 subjects in the final exam of secondary school). And I know of many students breaking into the
school at night open their student files and changing their marks to get enough
points to make it to university, they are now teachers, doctors and scientists.
Raul can make fighting corruption a central theme if he likes, but all of his economic, political & social policies encourage and reward corruption, while protecting those high regime official who engage in it. Corruption will remain an entrenched part of the Cuban system so long as the rule of law is weak and the people have no rights. Petty corruption is necessary to simply survive.