Hello to the whole community. As I have mentioned, I currently serve as Vice Dean for Academic Affairs at the Faculty of Educational Technologies of the University of Informatics Sciences. There are many challenges ahead, given the circumstances in which we will develop the present academic year, which I touched upon very briefly in this post.
Since February, on the eve of the beginning of the second semester of the 2025-2026 course, all the students were sent back to their provinces because of the fuel crisis. My university is located on the outskirts of Havana, so transportation is key to ensuring the daily commute of both teaching and service personnel. With the students at home, the decision was made to provide some teaching —through virtual means— so as not to delay their training plan, but limiting the subjects to those in the social sciences.
What was the rationale for adopting this approach at a technology-based university? The reason was that, given the chronic problems with electricity and Internet connectivity, it was not feasible to teach subjects such as Introduction to Programming, Data Structures, Web Programming, Artificial Intelligence, Mathematics, Linear Algebra, or Software Engineering. In truth, under the current conditions in Cuba, and especially at the height of the widespread use of Claude or ChatGPT, it simply does not make sense to embark on distance education, either in the social sciences or in the technical fields.
Ultimately, it is necessary to verify in situ that students organically possess a critical body of knowledge, which, by the way, obviously includes the intensive use of one LLM or another. This is not about limiting that use, but about ensuring that it is grounded in a certain body of independent knowledge that validates the awarding of an engineering degree. It is not AI that graduates, but an engineer who knows how to use it with a strong sense of ethics.
So, that first decision was not unreasonable. But after the 2025–2026 academic year ended, and faced with the sad truth that there is no light on the horizon, the university leadership —in a debatable decision, of course, but an understandable one if that is what it takes— has now decided that there is no alternative but to draw a merciful veil and move forward with the teaching process corresponding to the 2026–2027 academic year. And to include all subjects in that process.
The problem is that if we wait for a better context, the delay in the students' training plan will become even more serious than it already is. For example, second- and third-year students will no longer complete the Computer Science Engineering degree in four years —eight semesters— but will require an additional semester to carry out their final degree exercise.
How will this work?
For this particular academic year, “periods of face-to-face instruction” have been designed under two different study arrangements: one for students from Havana, who will receive an intensive teaching session every 15 days, and another for students residing in the rest of the provinces, who will be on campus for only one month —over the entire academic year— to receive even more intensive instruction. Thus, students in the capital have an advantage over those from the provinces: they will work at a less hectic pace, distributing the subjects planned for the year across the two semesters. Students who live, say, in Holguín —my home province— will receive all of that in 30 days.
And, obviously, while students from Havana will take their assessments in person, students from the other provinces will ultimately be assessed through the university's virtual learning environment. In any case, the Gordian knot lies in how to package the contents, how to condense it and get down to the essentials without compromising the quality of the training any further.
Because all of us with experience in higher education know that a process under these conditions is subject to disruptions and threats; it is full of weaknesses. But the other option was to give up and continue postponing the students' curriculum over time. Last Thursday, we already had our first session of face-to-face instruction with the first-year students from Havana, and at least I noticed good vibes. At around 5 p.m., already into the sixth class period of the day, they were still motivated in their Linear Algebra class, learning what the principal diagonal of a matrix is and when a matrix is diagonal.
I will keep you updated on the development of this complex effort to ensure that the future engineers of my university can grow and truly become everything that is possible for them to become amid the current scenario.
Source for the cover image, generated with GPT technology.