Time Magazine on Leonel Fernandez, DR ..

very interesting. Thanks for posting the link.

I thought the article was concise and balanced. What about this 10% high school graduation rate?

drbill said:

I thought the article was concise and balanced. What about this 10% high school graduation rate?

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But it is concise and well balanced, check the following: ...

"...Fern?ndez seems more fixated on consolidating power than on advancing his government's ambitious agenda. His government, for example, is spending almost as much building a subway line--$700 million--as it does on education and health together. And despite his rhetorical intolerance of corruption, Fern?ndez hasn't seriously challenged the country's long-standing culture of impunity enjoyed by thieving ?lites. ..."


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thanks

...for pointing out an important paragraph. Whether you see LF as a possible savior or as the devil incarnate, his reviews in the foreign press are a source of pride to many.
I was surprised by the low graduation rate quoted, though, and hope someone has some more-encouraging info. Is this the real number?

I think that 10% is kinda high. According to what I have read in other sources, it seems that about 5% of those that enter high school actually graduate.

Now, I want to CMA, and say that I could be way off and it is really 5% that enter first grade graduate high school, I am tired and I am not sure where I saw this.

HB

Their take on B?ez & Company is pretty accurate. After all, this is the great grandson of Buenaventura B?ez, another great man who raped this nation when it was at it's weakest. He printed 18 million worthless pesos, proclaimed an exchange rate and sent his henchmen out to buy all the gold and tobacco at the "official" rate and bankrupted most of the tobacco merchants and tradespeople in the Cibao. Oh the kid knew how to do it right, just this time he used computers instead of printed money....

I think that a trial for treason and lese patria would be just about right. Put him up in front of the Altar de la Patria and shoot him as a lesson to all...him and a few others.

"Never in the course of human events have so many been owed so much by so few" ...Sorry Winny.

HB

HB, I hope your stats are off... depressing. Maybe the teachers spend too much time drilling the alphabet... .

All nations must rely on their youngest generation to carry them into the future. A 10% graduation rate does not bode well for the D.R. It's incredulous that any government would blow hundreds of millions on projects than line the pockets of a few when the masses desperately need education and health care in such a small country.

"Never has so little been done for so much".....................my boss.

Quote by DRBill;

"Maybe the teachers spend too much time drilling the alphabet... ".

If this was an attempt at humor I fail to see it.

Concerning the percentage of students failing to complete school. If memory serves me correctly HB is correct in the percentage being above 90%. I will have to research it to come up with the official published percentage that the government gave. In the mean time I have supplied some links for your reading pleasure concerning education;

(Had to pull 3 links because they didn't work)



http://www.listindiario.com.do/antes/mayo05/240505/cuerpos/republica/rep12.htm


A couple of the education in the DR DR1 threads;
http://www.dr1.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45887

http://www.dr1.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45535

http://www.dr1.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48626

Rick

maybe 2 tracks

Like back home, where some number of students are steered to vocational-technical facilities while the rest pursue traditional academic coursework. I've heard of INFOTEP and others, but they don't seem to recruit or publicize heavily. It would seem that industry would welcome a generation of technically-educated workers, from sewing machine repair to robotics technology. Anyway, wrong thread for this; good article.
Rick, my sincerest regrets.

That accurately describes it...

"impunity enjoyed by thieving ?lites"

gary short said:

All nations must rely on their youngest generation to carry them into the future. A 10% graduation rate does not bode well for the D.R. It's incredulous that any government would blow hundreds of millions on projects than line the pockets of a few when the masses desperately need education and health care in such a small country.

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Ok people,

vote Hipolito back to power!

Leonel is bad, really bad. In fact, Leonel is so bad that inflation is in stratopheric proportions, tourists are deciding to go elsewhere, the economy is actually shrinking, jobs are being lost in all sectors, and martial law will be declared soon to impose order in the streets. Bad Leonel, bad!

Oh, and btw, why are there so many well educated people being part of the underemployed? I mean, if a country needs to be propelled into the future with more education, I would think there needs to be jobs to fill those who are educated already.

Maybe it's just me....:ermm:

-NALs :cheeky:

NALs said:

Maybe it's just me....:ermm:

-NALs :cheeky:

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It is.

Scandall

Scandall...what do you think...would education just serve to make them better at being corrupt? Where does corruption of this degree come from...education concentrated with the upper crest? Would a general education across the spectrum decrease corruption? Is corruption a lack of faith in the future, a lack of faith in their fellow citizens? Or is corruption more sinister? You can't help but be disillusioned at the metro. So much money. So many poor people.

Snuffy said:

Scandall...what do you think...would education just serve to make them better at being corrupt? Where does corruption of this degree come from...education concentrated with the upper crest? Would a general education across the spectrum decrease corruption? Is corruption a lack of faith in the future, a lack of faith in their fellow citizens? Or is corruption more sinister? You can't help but be disillusioned at the metro. So much money. So many poor people.

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Corruption will never end, it might diminish but end? Even in the wealthiest of nations corruption exist.

The question is what will be the return on the investment of massive higher education on a personal level?

The price of any segment of the laborforce is defined by two factors, supply and demand.

Demand comes from the companies available in the economy, companies that need accountants, analists, etc.

Supply comes from the number of people graduating with degrees of somesort.

If there is such a need for well educated peoples, beyond what the country is producing right now, then wages among the well educated would have been higher and in many cases, they are. However, underemployment would be minimal and this is where my questioning of whether more education is actually needed, given the current demand for high skill workers in the Dominican market.

Education up to the 6th grade should always be mandatory and encouraged, but research has shown that beyond the 6th grade level of education, most people don't learn any new skills. It's mostly furthering their application of the basic skills they learned in the first 6 years of schooling and college is basically icing on the cake. The most basic skills are learned in the first 6 years of schooling, thus there is no question that those 6 years must be well funded and such. With those basic skills, the masses will be able to get hired by any company and easily trained to do just about any job, increasing their productivity and income potential.

My focus is more on the higher education levels.

Walk into any supermarket, hotel and such and you will not be too far away from a Dominican with a degree in something and he/she not using that degree because there are no jobs for him/her. For that reason, that person took the lower paying, lower skill job (ie. underemployment).

Underemployment is a widespread problem in the DR and begs the question of whether more higher education graduates actually equal a bettering of their socioeconomic position when in fact, there are no jobs for such skills. The jobs that do exist are few and far between, far outstripping the current number of educated Dominicans in the labor force today.

Is it just me? Maybe.

Is what I am saying unfounded? Absolutely not.

-NALs

NALs where did I suggest that anyone vote Hipolito back in.
600 million would go a long way in funding education and health care in a country this size. Spending it on a subway that may never function or if it does, have a negligable ridership due to fares that no one will be able to afford is nonsense.
NALs stop doing whatever it is you're doing to yourself it's killing your brain.

Snuffy said:

Scandall...what do you think...would education just serve to make them better at being corrupt? Where does corruption of this degree come from...education concentrated with the upper crest? Would a general education across the spectrum decrease corruption? Is corruption a lack of faith in the future, a lack of faith in their fellow citizens? Or is corruption more sinister? You can't help but be disillusioned at the metro. So much money. So many poor people.

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Well, since you asked .

Education would help almost all of our problems.

Uneducated people have a one-dimensional view of the world. They only know what they see for themselves. They do not learn, as we do, from history or from studying. They don't know that there is another way...a right way to do things.

A general increase in education across the population would help the DR is many areas. Educated people understand the importance of sanitation and taking care of the environment. Educated people are active in their democracy and demand accountability. Educated people understand how economies work. Educated people cannot be bought off with a bag of rice and a chicken. Educated people have hope and more opportunity.

Only about 2% of homes in the DR are connected to the internet. In the last decade, experts spoke of the educational divide. Now we have the digital divide that will put Dominicans at more of a disadvantage than ever. Problems compound.

I laugh when I hear people defend the metro. We really have no business building a metro when education and healthcare are in such bad shape. For that matter, the conditions of the roads are horrible. At the end of the day, the metro makes no sense. It won't feed or educate anybody.

Scandall