General description
Cuba is an island and Caribbean country, with more than 11 million inhabitants (https://www.ecured.cu/Rep%C3%BAblica_de_Cuba). The official language is Spanish. School curricula are established nationally by the Ministry of Education (https://www.mined.gob.cu).
The Cuban National Education System has a structure subdivided into eight subsystems: (1) early childhood, (2) special education, (3) primary education, (4) secondary education, (5) pre-university education, (6) technical and vocational education, (7) youth and adult education, and (8) pedagogical training. The following syllabus of Mathematics subjects correspond to primary, secondary and pre-university education. The remaining syllabus are similar. In technical and professional education, the contents only differ on specific topics related to each specialty. The case of pedagogical training, the syllabus is similar to that of normal schools for teacher training, where the subject of mathematics is combined with others related to pedagogical methods and specific didactics.
The official syllabus appears on the portal of the Ministry of Education (https://www.mined.gob.cu). These syllabuses are currently in the process of being refined. Each update will be published successively, depending on its continuous improvement. The Cuban Society of Mathematics and Computing has developed a compilation of the current syllabus, which appear distributed in grades 1 to 12. The information collected is available in the Figshare data repository, but it is advisable to check if there is an update on the respective official sites:
https://www.mined.gob.cu/primaria/plan-de-estudio
https://www.mined.gob.cu/secundaria-basica/programas-de-estudio
https://www.mined.gob.cu/preuniversitaria/programas-de-estudio
Primary education
Mathematics (grade 1, 124KB): https://figshare.com/ndownloader/files/30818545
Mathematics (grade 2, 134KB): https://figshare.com/ndownloader/files/30818554
Mathematics (grade 3, 140KB): https://figshare.com/ndownloader/files/30818572
Mathematics (grade 4, 201KB): https://figshare.com/ndownloader/files/30818569
Mathematics (grade 5, 44KB): https://figshare.com/ndownloader/files/30818566
Mathematics (grade 6, 51KB): https://figshare.com/ndownloader/files/30818539
Secondary education
Mathematics (grade 7, 598KB): https://figshare.com/ndownloader/files/30818548
Mathematics (grade 8, 705KB): https://figshare.com/ndownloader/files/30818542
Mathematics (grade 9, 906KB): https://figshare.com/ndownloader/files/30818560
Pre-university education
Mathematics (grade 10, 2MB): https://figshare.com/ndownloader/files/30818551
Mathematics (grade 11, 254KB): https://figshare.com/ndownloader/files/30818557
Mathematics (grade 12, 377KB): https://figshare.com/ndownloader/files/30818563
The Cuban educational system also provides virtual resources for learning mathematics. Numerous educational and informative media appear on the Cubaeduca portal, where the TeleClases are highlighted. These means have been very useful to maintain teaching in times of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mathematics teaching also constitutes an aspect that the other subjects must attend. For this reason, together with the teaching of national history and the Spanish language, the subject of Mathematics has a transversal axis for interdisciplinarity (https://figshare.com/ndownloader/files/30818596).
With the aim of promoting mathematical talent, the Ministry of Education has approved and is developing a syllabus for training in solving mathematical problems, with a view to participating in the National Mathematical Olympics (https://figshare.com/ndownloader/files/30818605).
Miguel Cruz Ramírez, PhD
ICMI Representative for Cuba
mcruzr@uho.edu.cu