amarianopolita states
Basic education is a right not a privilege and when the government open its doors to this premise the DR will be on the road to being a better country with future long term growth and development. Invest in people first and foremost not in buildings and metros.
that is the basis of the problem. in the DR, education is thought of as a privilege to be afforded only to the wealthy and connected. the country suffers from information apartheid. the good schools are reserved to the children from families with hyphenated last names, whose lineages can be traced to Columbus. the rest of the populace languishes in a morass of bewildering ignorance, that is a source of shock to those who witness it. i have met Dominicans living in New York who still believe that the name of the country is New York. they were astonished and wide eyed when i told them that New York was a state and a city, not the country. i have not met one everyday person who can give me an idea of where they think Trinidad is on a map of the world. many opine that the condition is intentional, and is a carryover from the days of Trujillo, who figured that if people became educated , they would be more inquisitive, and difficult to manipulate. the incestuous nature of education in the country leads to the extremes of social stratification, and lack of upward mobility which characterises the culture. absent migration to places like the USA, five generations hence, the same families will be in the same situations they are today...the rich will be rich, the poor will be poor. just the way the social and political directorate intended it to be.
