Cuban Newspaper Criticizes Teachers Charging for Tutoring
Published at 5:03 pm EST, October 12, 2013
Cuban Communist Party daily Granma complained Friday that some salaried teachers are breaking the law by charging fees for individual tutoring.
“Charging for that work is an illicit exercise upon which limits must be imposed,” Granma warned in an article saying that such activities reveal “the lack of professional ethics” and “the loss of the teacher’s role.”
Tutoring for money was illegal in Cuba until 2010, when the government of Raul Castro, as part of its move to expand the possibilities of private work, authorized a kind of “self-employed teacher” to help students do better.
However, salaried teachers cannot obtain a tutor’s license.
At present, according to official sources cited by Granma, 1,023 Cubans have a license to practice that activity as a private business.
But in addition, the daily’s report says, there are salaried university professors who urge students to attend their private classes, for which they charge the equivalent of $10 per