DR1 Daily News - Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic has little to show for the more than doubling of the public spending in public education since 2013.

The 4% of Gross Domestic Product now spent on public education has not translated into the expectations for major improvements in quality education nationwide. The 4% of GDP is a social conquest, achieved after months of protests that demanded the government comply with the legal requirement to allocate 4% of the National Budget to the Ministry of Education and make available more funds for public education.

The government began to allocate the 4% as of 2013 during the first government of former President Danilo Medina. Yet, after more than eight years, the Dominican Republic continues to report the highest level of insufficiency in learning in the Latin American region. Most of the funds were spent building public schools and raising the...