When a Mod posts, it's hard to determine if their post is from the perspective of a Mod, or the perspective of a poster with an opinion or comment.
:classic:
Carry on...
I always have opinions.
Thanks A.Hidalgo, you're bringing it back on track.
My opinion is that it is unfair to compare education in the DR to education in developed countries. It is better to compare it to similar countries, in similar circumstances. Reason for this opinion is that there is very little money and few correct resources going to education in the DR, and in the developed countries, expenditure and resources for education is differently employed so that education of some or other sort, is attainable for the 'person in the street', so to speak. In the DR good education is not easily attainable for the masses. To compare education in the DR to developed countries, is truly an apple and pear comparison as the playing field is not level.
I worked in a very limited way with some adult education issues in a small community. It was an eye opener. Over 80% of the adults were/are illiterate, i.e., could not read or write.
Two things became clear to me. Firstly, the adults in this community wanted their children to be educated. But there was no clear understanding of how to accomplish this. They did not understand that they had to send their children to school, turn off the television and provide books and materials. The concept of education remained on a par with the concept of say... becoming rich! Yes, we want that, sure, but there is no ability to make it so. The concept of education remained in the realm of dreams and not in the realm of an attainable actuality.
Secondly, during this time, one of the community members completed her degree. She became a lawyer. In working together, she could not write one sentence correctly from beginning to end. In helping me draw up documentation and paperwork for this community, she had no sense of how to use a computer, and the task became laborious as the sentences did not flow, every correction had to be made on the spot and nothing came out correctly. It was like watching a 1st grader lick the pencil, then lick the eraser and laboriously erasing the one wrong letter, and laboriously fixing the one wrong letter. It took us about 6 hours to write 3 paragraphs.
The experience reminded me very much of the 3rd world country in which I grew up. I was the fortunate, where I could work toward an education. I was in the perhaps 5% of people in the country. The 95% had to overcome severe systemic problems to get close to an education. It has not changed much.
With such a tremendous backlog in getting people educated, seems to me a country such as the DR should be putting some serious programs in place to educate their constituents, both adults, as well as kids. We see some attempts by the current administration to do this, mainly in the area of technology. But this is so little, and so late.
In comparison with the DR, a poster on this thread mentioned that the Cuban population is literate and this did not help them much. They are exporting education and the adult education methodology that a researcher in Cuba came up with is being used right across Latin and South America for adult education. (I am not commenting on politics, I am commenting on a good adult education program!)
I do think in the DR a program such as this as a starting place to develop the ability of adults to make the decision to educate their kids with a real knowledge of what it takes, could be excellent. The program is called [SIZE=-1]?Yo S? Puedo?
Education, the ability to read, the ability to write, the ability to educate one's children, the ability to critically understand the social issues of the country will make change in the DR. I think it is the only thing that will propel the country into a democracy of some form.
Are your questions now answered Cobraboy? The question about talking about education in the DR as opposed to social factors somewhere else?
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