Pretoria, South Africa.- The participation of four Cuban professors specialized in science and mathematics to train South African teachers in Eastern Cape will help to strengthen the teaching of these subjects in that province, officials of that sector said today.

The arrival of the Cuban professors to teach these subjects to teachers of that province occurs at a time when only 50 percent of mathematics students in Eastern Cape and about 60 percent in science passed their respective exams, provincial sources said.

Eastern Cape Education Department head, Themba Kojana, told the press the desire to obtain significant improvements and said that the decision to establish an institute to teach Mathematics, Science and Technology to support schools and teachers in strengthening the teaching of those subjects is part of those efforts.

Kojana highlighted the importance of the work carried out by these Cuban professors to promote the Mathematics and Science Academy in Queenstown, opened last year.

Since then, the results improved from 37 to 42.3 percent in mathematics and from 49 to 57.3 percent in science, he said.

The program in which the Cuban professors will work in Eastern Cape for five years, will begin in February and local experts stated that the language will not be an obstacle because the collaborators of that nation have been trained to communicate efficiently.