Leonides Blanco Technical College: Agronomy and Much More

by Zenia Regalado

 Photos: Santiago Calero

The students of the technical
college love to play chess.

Over here a rejoicing, over there some people play chess. We arrived at Leonides Blanco Technical Colllege, in San Juan and Martinez, Pinar del Rio, on the day of an important meeting.

In this kind of centers studies also combine with entertainment and culture, it is not casual they have four art instructors. One of them, Reinier Royero Prens, explained to us how the students relate to Encantos de mi conuco communitary project. One of  its leaders is Héctor Luis Prieto Diaz, the youngest Habano man in the world.

The Project takes to the technical college its    performances and is related to different vocational groups such as Agronomy, Soils and Environment and the workshops taught by cigar maker Miguel Arcángel Cabrera. It's about emphasize the cultural traditions associated with the growing of tobbaco, although they also evoke historical dates.

The spectrum increased

Although this campus in the province of Pinar del Rio was founded essentially for Agronomy major, now it has 575 students (of them 300 girls), in 21 specialties, and practice in 32 annexed classrooms that work by stages. Among them there are those of Body Shop and Mechanics in centers of the territory that will demand this labor as qualified workers and technicians.

Ernesto Hernández Ortiz, director of the technical college, explained that recently 136 technicians graduated and all of them got a job, including six who will work at Cabaret del Rio when its reconstruction finishes.

How could you work with so many specialties?, we asked Hernandez Ortiz, who answered they have and staff of 142 professors and 30 others from different organizations in annexed classrooms. Last course they hired teachers who graduated in provincial centres and had an intensive six-month training.

Another of the positive fact the director points out is the industriousness of the students of Agronomy: Eighteen graduates are being prepared in the Hermanos Saiz company, and four are training to go to the University in that same major, while another group will be part of the labor force in the selection room.

For the link between theory and practice the technical college has an organopónico with Vermiculture and four beds with the plant known as moringa.

Talking with Grandpa

Daymara is already able to exchange
knowledge with her granpa

Daymara Fajardo Alvarez, President of the High-School Students Federation in the center, says that on 24 January they received the visit of Leonides Blanco´s sister –the school is named after him-,  who held a very emotional conversation with students and answered theier questions.

On 28 January the winners of the literary and painting contest Leer a Martí (Reading Martí) were awarded. Each activity is supported by art instructors.

Dayana explains at first she wanted to go to high school, but due to her health problems she had to stay near home. Now anything in the world can keep her go away from the technical college.

"At the beginning I didn't want to come here, there are many prejudices technical colleges. My specialty is Agronomy, visit organopónicos and semi-protected crops. We have two sessions per week to take care of  plantations. We develop different skills.

"Now I can talk to my grandfather, who is a farmer, on difrerent tasks related to tobacco growing. The country needs young labor force and it is counting on that is training in technical colleges", Daymara asserts.