Cuba’s government is suddenly very interested in encouraging proficiency in English

Cuba's government is suddenly very interested in encouraging proficiency
in English
WRITTEN BY Hanna Kozlowska

The coming influx of US tourists and business ties probably won't change
Cuba as much as most Americans think it will, but the restoration of
official ties between the two countries already seems to be having a big
effect on at least one aspect Cuban life: education, and specifically
the teaching of English language skills.
English was taken out of the Cuban curriculum in the 1970s, when it was
replaced with Russian. Though it returned after the collapse of the
Soviet Union in 1991, interest in learning English, as AFP recently
noted, has risen sharply in the past few months. And so has the
government's interest in helping Cubans become proficient in it.
Last weekend, José Ramón Machado Ventura, the Cuban revolutionary and
high-ranking Communist party leader, reportedly urged university
students to master the English language, as part of their efforts to
become well-rounded professionals after graduation.
"We have to speak English well. If you can speak two or three languages,
so much the better, but English is essential," he told the National
Council of the University Student Federation in an Aug. 29 speech in Havana.
Meanwhile, the Communist party newspaper Granma, in a Sept. 1 report on
the start of Cuba's new school year, noted that "the teaching of Cuban
History, Spanish and English will again be priorities, all essential to
the comprehensive development of students."

Source: Women with "resting bitch face" are actually better
communicators - Quartz -
http://qz.com/495771/women-with-resting-bitch-face-are-actually-better-communicators/