Distance Education in Cuba: Directed Courses

When someone has completed their studies in upper secondary education (pre-university, technical college or worker-peasant college), in Cuba, If you are interested in continuing your studies in Higher Education, but not in the regular daytime course (where daily class attendance is required), then you have the option to choose:
a. Choose the Meeting-Based Course, where classes are held in meetings once a week. It doesn't require taking the required entrance exams, and you no longer have to be a worker to enroll.
b. The Distance Education Course, which is based on self-study and only requires taking proficiency exams, as scheduled throughout the year. Entrance exams are not required.
The Meeting Course is generally for workers, although it is not mandatory (it requires attending classes once a week, or once every two weeks, depending on the degree being studied).
All citizens who have completed secondary or higher education may enroll in Distance Education, whether working or not. This modality does not include any class attendance; all student training is conducted remotely, with students attending only the assessment exams for the subjects they have enrolled in. For this reason, this modality is known as Directed Courses.
The Directed Courses curricula are structured into three cycles of disciplines:
First Cycle: basic general and social disciplines
Second Cycle: basic-specific disciplines
Third Cycle: disciplines of the degree profile.
Currently, nine majors are offered under this Directed Course format: Economics, Accounting and Finance, Tourism, History, Law, Information Sciences, Sociocultural Studies, Agroindustrial Process Engineering, and Sociocultural Management for Development.
Learning assessment in Directed Courses is carried out through final exams in each of the enrolled subjects.
Final exams assess the content of the courses; they are written and require the student to be present at the designated location. Each exam lasts a maximum of four hours and is administered as an open or essay test.
These exams are held during non-working hours, primarily on weekends, at the university facilities where the student is enrolled in their Distance Education program.
There will be three exam sessions each academic year, held in February and March, May and June, and September and October. Students may freely select the subjects they will take each time.
To attend an exam, it is essential that the student requests the subjects to be examined 30 days in advance of the scheduled date.
The evaluation system in Cuba stipulates the state exam for completion of studies. This consists of an exam taken by students before a panel of specialists, where they are assessed on the content of the disciplines within the program profile.