Summary
Perfecting the link between theory and practice during law studies contributes to the scientific education that Cuban pedagogy implements, in correspondence with the principle that is related to the model of the professional who aspires to train based on their demands. ideo-classists. The correctly designed work practice stage in each year of the degree contributes to the consolidation of the theoretical knowledge acquired in the classrooms, which is why it must become a central strategy not only for the University, but also in close relationship and strict coordination with the organisms that will later assimilate this qualified force.Evidence of the need to improve labor practice is evident when comparing the knowledge that they have achieved and the work results obtained during the first months of work, the graduates who during their studies were workers of institutions related to the legal sector, with those graduated from the course day and other forms of study, which begin to work.
Introduction
In the Republic of Cuba the education of its citizens is a vitally important right for the formation of the new man and the construction of a prosperous and sustainable socialism, for its materialization one of the first revolutionary measures was the eradication of illiteracy in 1961, during the National Literacy Campaign, unprecedented in the history of the continent, because thousands of young people participated in it with the aim of facilitating universal access to different levels of education.
The link between study and work is a legacy of our heroes and constitutes a principle of Cuban education. This principle is endorsed in article 39 b) of the Constitution of the Republic, which stipulates, among others, that education is a function of the State and is free. It is based on the conclusions and contributions of science and on the study's closest relationship with life, work and production.
Development
The training of new generations in a comprehensive, systematic, participatory and constantly developing educational teaching process is supported by a set of principles, among which its massive nature, free education, the conjugation of study and work, participation democratic society in the development of its tasks, among others.
Eminent pedagogues such as the priest Félix Varela y Morales, (1788-1853), the first who taught us to think, as well as José de la Luz y Caballero, (1800-1862), founder of the Cuban school, agree that teaching should have a scientific character, hence the importance they gave to practical and experimental subjects.
José Martí (1853-1895) is distinguished because his work constitutes a program of unprecedented educational value, which imprints a future seal on the scientific training of the new man. With absolute topicality, his pedagogical thinking illustrates precisely by exposing the need to change theoretical teaching into practice, summarized in: "The remedy is to change bravely the primary instruction from verbal to experimental, from rhetorical to scientific…
Referring to the Marxist theory of education, Suchodolski, who was president of the Institute of Pedagogical Sciences of the University of Warsaw, rightly asserts that this is not only the result of previous human relations, but also makes it possible to get out of that vicious circle through revolutionary practice.
For Ernesto Guevara, forerunner of volunteer work on the Island, theory and practice must always go hand in hand, considering that one of his ideas was to achieve the highly trained and highly experienced technician, the man who acquires great experience on the job practical, because in books, he considers, nothing is learned except up to a certain level or a certain discipline.
The Heroic Guerrilla fighter conceived the link between study and work in higher education, with the materialization of knowledge in work practices, during the career, as a way to train future professionals.
Similar ideas were ratified by the then Minister of Higher Education, Vecino Alegret, in the National Workshop on the training of the professional, when he analyzed that: “Our Martian and Marxist conception of study-work that articulates in a single whole the academic, labor and investigative, is the foundation from which the generation of knowledge, skills and values in students unfolds. ”
In 2002, with the strategic vision that is related to it, the Commander in Chief, Fidel Castro Ruz asked the leaders of the University of Computer Sciences, which was about to be inaugurated: "This University must be characterized by the great variety of different forms to teach, to prepare. "Intellectual productions will be the fundamental sustenance of Cuba."
It contributes decisively to the training of the new man, the effectiveness with which work practices are executed, taking into account that it is the most complete expression of teaching-production-research integration, which allows the student, in addition to promoting new knowledge, developing the necessary skills.
In the development of work practice, during the educational teaching process, there must be a close link between the academic and work component, where the student actively participates, since learning is done, giving solution to the practical cases that in the day to the day of the profession they are presented, only in this way can a good graduate in the discipline of Law be achieved.
Cuba is immersed in a transformation process that must be characterized by improving the quality of services that favor the increase in efficiency and the saving of human resources. These challenges increase the need to develop high job training for the entire population, which is based in schools. Under these conditions, job training has among its main objectives: to train capable citizens with a creative attitude towards life.
The current conception of education not only coincides with the pedagogues of other generations of Cubans, but it perfects the idea that in every subject the academic should be included together with the labor. In this regard Álvarez de Zayas confirms that "… the conceptual is as important as the skills that are developed for the solution of the problems of social practice.", While Baranov, Mendoza and López Nuñez, in Introduction to Pedagogy, support it "… in the conclusions and contributions of science and in close relationship of the study with life, work and production".
Drs Yisel Rivero Baxter and Clotilde Proveyer Cervantes, consider that the school is challenged to accompany the scientific-technical knowledge achieved by society and to raise the productive levels achieved so far. They also believe that teaching must be made compatible with production transformation processes, with high incorporation of scientific and technical components.
For Dr.C. Homero Calixto Fuentes González, from a dialectical point of view, “… theory and practice, constitute philosophical categories that occur in unity and that from a scientific position must be seen in their dialectical unity. The research-labor training process of university students is not based on a theoretical model, but each career or center starts from its own essentially empirical assumptions. ”
From the above, it is evident to highlight the need to prepare man to live in a society that develops every day in science and technology at giant steps, where new generations are trained in a creative process, in which they are combined abilities, knowledge, skills; that they face problems and through critical judgments try to find solutions that comply with current regulations.
Dr Pedro Horruitiner Silva determines that “… the link between study and work constitutes the second guiding idea of Cuban higher education. He expresses the need to train the student in direct contact with their profession, either through a stable employment relationship throughout the entire career or from a training model developed from work. ”
In Cuban University careers, work practice must be developed from the first year and occupy around a third of the total teaching time.
For the author, the link between study and work is a planned, systematic and organized process that seeks to modify, improve and expand the knowledge, skills and attitudes of professionals, as a need imposed by the new challenges demanded by scientific progress. technical.
The fundamental objective of this stage is to consolidate knowledge about the procedures learned in theory, obtaining skills, values and modes of action, based on the specific cases that are presented. It is the time to apply the principles learned, go deeper through observation, and consequently interpret the current legal norms for their adaptation in specific situations, which would be achieved harmonically with the active participation of the teachers who teach the theory in university classrooms, together with the deputies who work in the institutions that are updated in practice.
But is this the reality for law students in the province of Las Tunas? Does the practice, in this career, constitute a fundamental source of the knowledge necessary to face the job that this professional must guarantee? How to raise the professional technical level of the graduates who join the work as prosecutors, lawyers, judges, consultants or legal advisers?
In the present investigation, the need to improve the principle of the conjugation of study with work was verified, considering that the percentage of hours established for the labor practices of the students of the Law degree is considered to be insufficient, only reaching 18.6% of the total hours allocated to the race and its fulfillment is not effective, because the regulated time is not fully complemented and the strategy for its development is not implemented.
Current research on the quality of university graduates (Iñigo and Lazo, 1987; Lazo, 1996; Iñigo and Lazo, 1999) indicate that the efforts and resources directed at the investigative-labor training of university students are not used based on achieve the necessary competencies to face, with creativity and independence, their professional functions when they state that the teaching-educational process in the teaching units is not managed in a systemic way, supported by theoretical foundations and regularities in their development.
They also point out that the university-company relationship, which allows the integrated training work of university professionals, leans more on the will of the subjects involved than on the adaptation to a scientifically argued relationship model; The formation of a teaching unit, for the development of the investigative-labor training process of university students, is not done from a theoretical model, as it should, but rather each career or center starts from its own, essentially empirical, budgets.
L. Cánovas. (2002) is of the opinion that Pedagogy "is placed by social practice by not responding to the demands and needs of the time, by continuing to use traditionalist representations for the solution of new problems".
The career of Law is not an exception, considering that some organizations, such as the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic, which is an organ of the State, whose corporate purpose is determined by the work of these professionals, as of 2003 implemented a Diploma for the graduates who, at the end of their university studies, are designated as prosecutors, in order to link them with the practice of the Institution's corporate purpose, which, in principle, should have expired during work practices.
In the province of Las Tunas, the above is ratified with the result of a survey applied to 55.5% of its faculty and 50.9% of the fourth and fifth year students of the day course. The opinion of 4 experienced prosecutors was also considered, chosen for being the Provincial Prosecutor of Las Tunas teaching unit since 2003 and they also turn out to be associate professors of the University. The criteria of 38 legal professionals, who work in other institutions and in one way or another have been linked to graduates who begin their working lives, were used.
Graduates who during their studies worked in institutions such as the Law Firm, the Prosecutor's Office, the Court and Justice, demonstrated more mastery of each subject, obtained better academic results and graduated with more knowledge of technical issues, if compared to those of the course. daytime and other study modalities, which were not linked to work or that were done in centers that have nothing to do with Law, hence the importance of increasing the number of hours dedicated to professional practice and improving performance, within the main integrative discipline, which includes work practices and research.
During the first year of the degree, students have a 32-hour legal exercise, which represents around 3.4% of the total time, which is 928 hours. In that week they basically get acquainted with the jurist's ways of acting. They also visit some institutions related to Law.
For the second year, labor practices occupy 120 hours, which constitutes 11.2% of the total, while during the third and fourth years the activity is scheduled for 180 hours, representing 17.4 and 24.8% respectively. Already for the fifth, 400 hours are planned, which constitutes 35.2%. As a whole, work placements for law students constitute 18.6% of the total time. If the doctrine considers that the work practices should occupy around a third of the total teaching time, this time should be increased by approximately 400 hours, throughout the career.
In the surveys carried out, 59.7% of the total stated that the labor practices, in the Law degree, do not prepare the students to perform once they finish their studies, motivated, first of all, because 92.5% state that The specialists who are appointed in the work centers do not create the necessary time fund to attend them, because the coordination between the University and the Organizations and Institutions that host the practitioners is not effective, in which 50% coincide and as the last significant, 72.5%, believes that students are not linked to technical activities, which once graduates have to face.
73.1% of the respondents do not consider the time established for the development of work practices to be sufficient, which is aggravated because 69% state that the short time available, determined by the location they made between 1 and 3, to assess the use of the established, on a scale of 1 to 5.
Of the 17 professionals surveyed, who have between 1 and 5 years of work experience, 14 state that the internships did not prepare them to carry out the assigned activity, which is compatible with the studies due in the career; 13 agree that during the internships they were not always linked to technical activities and frequently the specialists assigned to the agencies did not have the necessary time to attend to them, because the coordination was not done in advance, while 16 of them agreed that the established term is not enough, which is sharpened when evaluating them between 2 and 3 on a scale of up to 5 points.
In the province of Las Tunas, it is required to implement a transformation in the labor practice of the students of the Law degree, perfecting the guides or programs to develop during that fundamental stage in the formation of the future professional. Establish agreements, for each stage, with the legal institutions, where they are planned, which must be characterized by the objectivity of the activities to be carried out, so that they are taxed on the subjects received each year.
Conclusions
The investigation determined that the time established for the development of labor practices is not sufficient. The established one is not used optimally.
The professionals appointed in some organizations, where the work practices must be developed, are not adequately prepared and not infrequently the students carry out activities that have nothing to do with the techniques of Law, taking care that the coordination is not done long enough in advance..
From the above, the author considers that the practical knowledge that graduates of the Law degree in the province of Las Tunas does not suffice, as the theory-practice principle is not effectively implemented, with the aim that once graduates are able to give answers to the current problems of Cuban society, which are the responsibility of these professionals, so it is necessary to transform their design.
Bibliography
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