"To speak of exercise and sports is not to speak of world and Olympic champions, it is to speak of daily, ongoing well-being, it is to speak of a good health, it is to speak of the capacity for study and work. To speak of physical education and sports is to speak of a science, a universal activity".
 
 

“The economic crisis also means the aggravation of major problems that are far from being solved: poverty, hunger and disease, which kill tens of millions of people in the world every year; illiteracy, lack of education, unemployment, and the exploitation of millions of children through child labor and prostitution; the trafficking and consumption of drugs, which mobilizes and absorbs hundreds of billions of dollars; money laundering; the lack of drinking water; the scarcity of housing, hospitals, communications, schools and educational facilities.”

While many recognize the tremendous advances that our country has made in health care, education and sports, as if these were the only objectives, or the final objectives of our struggles or our lives, we would have to add: We are striving for something much more noble, we are striving for justice for all.

“A veritable culture of protecting and preserving the schools, their resources and equipment must be encouraged in the children, the teachers, parents, local residents and our people in general. Nothing more noble, human, motivating and useful than a school can be created. We must ensure that what fills us all with joy today will never become, through laziness or irresponsibility, a source of sorrow and frustration. Let us safeguard what has been achieved. Let us be worthy of the feats we have shown we can accomplish!”

“Parents should be the first to educate their children. And to guarantee the education of our children, we must guarantee the education of their parents”.

“The world has changed a great deal in the last few decades, and some truly wonderful means of transmitting information and knowledge have emerged. Yet they are almost always used, for commercialistic reasons, to deform and alienate minds, and to destroy the very best that has been cultivated in children and adults by teachers, professors and parents themselves, who are or should be every child’s first educators”.

“At the same time, education has always been, from the very moment of the triumph of the Revolution, and will always be, one of the fundamental objectives in our epic struggle for a truly just, free and humane society. The experience we have gained and the results we have achieved more than fully justify this decision.”

"At the same time, education has always been, from the very moment of the triumph of the Revolution, and will always be, one of the fundamental objectives in our epic struggle for a truly just, free and humane society. The experience we have gained and the results we have achieved more than fully justify this decision. What began with a literacy campaign in a nation where the immense majority of the population was totally and functionally illiterate --where less than 10% of adolescents and adults had a sixth-grade education, and political consciousness was stunted by the limitations entailed by the mind-numbing system of economic exploitation, lies and alienation imposed on our people– is now being transformed into the most extraordinary case of educational and cultural development ever known by any society in all of history."

The greatest desire of all Cuban revolutionaries is for every new generation to be better prepared for the huge challenges that the future brings for our country and all of humankind. Every minute of your lives, you must be fully aware of the great responsibility that the country and the Revolution have entrusted in you: for the moment, to study hard and fulfill your duty with honor.

Without the enormous human capital created by the Revolution, we could never have even dreamed of the great educational revolution that Cuba is carrying out today, whose significance will transcend the borders of our own country.

"Today we are striving to perfect the work accomplished up until now, and proceeding on the basis of entirely new ideas and concepts. Today we are seeking for what should be and will be, in our judgment, an educational system that increasingly corresponds to the equality, full justice, self-esteem and moral and social needs of all people in the type of society that Cubans have decided to build."