After visiting DR a few times I've made lots of nice friends there. I'm particularly close to this one boy and we usually hang out when I visit. He's 19, very (street-smart) intelligent, and hard working. He works long hours though (about 12 a day) with no day off, and no option of vacation. His boss is a nightmare and treats the four employees at this small colmado with disrespect. My friend and I talk often by phone and he sounds very tired of that lifestyle. A couple of times I suggested he finish school... He left school at the age of 14 and is not very interested in returning. I tried to explain to him that this way he'll always do menial jobs and that there are too many replaceable uneducated people (including all of his friends) - and that he should do better than that. He comes up with all kinds of excuses why he couldn't finish school - be a burden to his parents (I tell him he could work part-time), he doesn't have the money, he doesn't have time, he has to work to live...
I'm hoping that someone will be able to give me an insight into the situation and answer the following questions:
1. When someone has secondary, or high school, education, does it make a difference? Are there options for better jobs?
2. Are there schools for "working adults", or schools that don't have to be attended every day? I'm particularly interested in the cities of Nagua and La Romana. This would invalidate my friend's suggestion that he doesn't have the time to go to school.
3. Are high schools affordable to Dominicans? Right now my friend makes US$240 a month, of which $100 goes to his habitacion. Basically he lives with the remaining money (I don't know how). I'm even tempted to tell him to go live with his parents and I'd pay those US$140 a month that he's currently making by working like a dog.
I'd like to help my friend a little and rear him in this direction, particularly because I was in a similar situation at his age, school stank to me and I'd been changing menial jobs until many years later I said enough & got through all kinds of schooling, and life is much better now... But of course the big difference is that I live in the US, and I'm not sure that DR is another meritocracy, and that completed high school (and maybe later university) would help there...
Any hints will be very appreciated!
I love DR
Betty
I'm hoping that someone will be able to give me an insight into the situation and answer the following questions:
1. When someone has secondary, or high school, education, does it make a difference? Are there options for better jobs?
2. Are there schools for "working adults", or schools that don't have to be attended every day? I'm particularly interested in the cities of Nagua and La Romana. This would invalidate my friend's suggestion that he doesn't have the time to go to school.
3. Are high schools affordable to Dominicans? Right now my friend makes US$240 a month, of which $100 goes to his habitacion. Basically he lives with the remaining money (I don't know how). I'm even tempted to tell him to go live with his parents and I'd pay those US$140 a month that he's currently making by working like a dog.
I'd like to help my friend a little and rear him in this direction, particularly because I was in a similar situation at his age, school stank to me and I'd been changing menial jobs until many years later I said enough & got through all kinds of schooling, and life is much better now... But of course the big difference is that I live in the US, and I'm not sure that DR is another meritocracy, and that completed high school (and maybe later university) would help there...
Any hints will be very appreciated!
I love DR
Betty