to April 2013 alone,
revenue lost from goods and service exports amounted
to more than $80,000.
One loss which has affected Cuba for
a long time is the geographical relocation of trade,
which means acquiring necessary goods from distant
markets, considerably increasing transportation
costs.
In concrete figures, the situation
is as follows: in 2012 the transfer of goods
purchased for the education sector cost $1.12
million. If these products had been purchased in the
southern United States they would have cost only
$543,800. This additional expenditure means having
to buy less than the necessary amount of other goods.
A case in point is that only 100 Natural Science
modules for elementary schools were purchased this
year. Similarly, this complication makes obtaining
essential resources to develop skills in Vocational
Education, Geography and Language very difficult.
In Arts Education, because of the
U.S. imposed blockade, it has not been possible to
buy musical instruments and audio equipment for all
institutions in the sector. Acquiring parts to
repair instruments in Music Schools has also been
affected. The impossibility of using the U.S. dollar
in Cuban trade has forced the country to pay sums
well above the contracted rate to obtain raw
materials used for producing text books.
The genocidal policy of the blockade
prevents exchanges between Cuban and U.S. academic
institutions, seriously obstructing the development
of Computation Science. Many of the licenses needed
to access these tools must be paid to U.S. companies
but existing restrictions prevent this.
Despite these concrete examples, the
Cuban government continues to uphold the fundamental
right to education of all its people.
