Difference in school system?

njswift10141980 said:

I'm not sure if this is the right section for this question but here it is. Can someone explain the difference if any between the school system in the US and the DR? Is it the same where you go from kindergarten or 1st grade to the 8th grade then graduate and then high school? Someone was trying to explain it to me, but what they were saying didn't make sense to me .


Thanks

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Yes it is primary until grade 8, then high school Grade 9-12. Other than that there is no comparison to American schools.

From what I see, depends on the community. Some people dont go to high school because their pueblo doesnt have one. Or they cant afford the transportation to it. They usually break school into 2 periods, morning and afternoon. The younger children go to school from like 8-12 and then there is a 2 hour break and the older kids go from 2-6. At least that what I see from the school on the corner, Licensiado Oneisimo Jimenez. I dont think they are getting a high quality education here because many that I see arent learning any type of structured spanish grammar. I dont know, I m sure you get fired in the US for taking liberties with -gh, -ph and -f in English composition class.
But I think you want if you have young children to consider a private school which may be closer to school in the US.

RacerX said:

From what I see, depends on the community. Some people dont go to high school because their pueblo doesnt have one. Or they cant afford the transportation to it. They usually break school into 2 periods, morning and afternoon. The younger children go to school from like 8-12 and then there is a 2 hour break and the older kids go from 2-6. At least that what I see from the school on the corner, Licensiado Oneisimo Jimenez. I dont think they are getting a high quality education here because many that I see arent learning any type of structured spanish grammar. I dont know, I m sure you get fired in the US for taking liberties with -gh, -ph and -f in English composition class.
But I think you want if you have young children to consider a private school which may be closer to school in the US.

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You were going so great in the Haiti threads just to spoil everything over with that sentence. It seems to me you know a bit about the world, but nothing much about the DR. I want to know in which pueblo there is not a public high school?

ExtremeR said:

You were going so great in the Haiti threads just to spoil everything over with that sentence. It seems to me you know a bit about the world, but nothing much about the DR. I want to know in which pueblo there is not a public high school?

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Hahahaha! You ve been nursing that beer for a long time man.
Look man all I know, is that ONE of the women I am talking to said she couldnt go to high school because she lived in the country and they didnt have one or it was too far or it was converted into a milk plant or something. Where? San Jose de las Matas or San Juan de Maguana. I cant remember. How do I know? I dont. I took her word for it. You re 34 years old and you dont have a bachillerato? Is she full of it? Who knows? I was talking to her sister and her sister told me the same thing. She was the only one in the family who completed high school(out of 9 girls) and go to college. Sounds like bullshoot to me, but then again I was not born here. Needless to say.........................its needless to say.
Another one(I m not talking to her, just making the rounds if you know what I mean), said she never went to high school, she is from Cotui.
You tell me where the school is and I ll send them back there.

njswift10141980 said:

could someone explain the bachillerato to me


Thanks

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It means that a student has passed the national exams (Pruebas Nacionales) and graduated from what would be called high school or secondary school in North America.

RacerX said:

Hahahaha! You ve been nursing that beer for a long time man.
Look man all I know, is that ONE of the women I am talking to said she couldnt go to high school because she lived in the country and they didnt have one or it was too far or it was converted into a milk plant or something. Where? San Jose de las Matas or San Juan de Maguana. I cant remember. How do I know? I dont. I took her word for it. You re 34 years old and you dont have a bachillerato? Is she full of it? Who knows? I was talking to her sister and her sister told me the same thing. She was the only one in the family who completed high school(out of 9 girls) and go to college. Sounds like bullshoot to me, but then again I was not born here. Needless to say.........................its needless to say.
Another one(I m not talking to her, just making the rounds if you know what I mean), said she never went to high school, she is from Cotui.
You tell me where the school is and I ll send them back there.

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Una de las razones que muchas personas como la se?ora que mencionaste solo terminan la primaria, es por que en muchos lugares rurales de nuestro pais como san jose de las matas, ayy escuelas primarias en cada campo, pero talves 1 escuela secundaria en un solo campo. Y como el transporte publico es bien escaso es bien dificil para muchas personas que viven es sectores lejanos llegar a donde estan la escuela secundarias. Lamentablemente ayy muchas personas de nuestro campo que no tienen un bachillerato pero no es por que no quieran terminar la escuela, si no muchas veces es por la situacion que se encuentran que no pueden terminar.

People who don't finish high school in The DR is not because availability, but because just like anywhere in the world there are people who just don't care for school. In the DR in addition to regular high school they have night school, weekend school and you can even get your diploma by listening to the classes on the radio (Radio Santa Maria)...At least you used to back when I was growing up. I'm sure nowadays they offer some of it on the web as well.

A lot of those who finish high school don't go on to college due to lack of job prospects.

Now as to the quality o the education that's another matter as someone already said.

In The DR there's typically NOT a desire to try to keep kids together in classes by age such as in The US. This means if your kid is smart enough he/she could finish high school and be in college at a very young age (I did). Kids can and are typically enrolled in pre-school around 2 years old and typically start on first grade around 5/6 years old.

Physical education (sports) is not as big of a component as it is in The US. Mostly because of lack of facilities and probably because Dominicans are not a crazy about sports as Americans are (except for baseball).

Music and art education is pretty much non-existent in regular schools again due mostly to lack of instruments, supplies, etc. In spite of this we still turn out great musicians, but most of these are either self taught or go to private music schools.

Really the answer here depends upon whether you are talking about the public or private schools, in part. It also depends upon whether you just want to know about the system or whether you want to know about what happens in some schools. According to the SEE (Secretar?a de estado de educaci?n or Ministry of Education), there are three levels of schooling that more or less go along with K-12 education: inicial, b?sica, y media. If you would like to see more about the system and understand Spanish, you can go to their website: Secretar?a de Estado de Educaci?n. All documents, like curricular requirements, can be found at Educando - El Portal de la Educaci?n Dominicana - Inicio.

Inicial is anything before 1st grade, what we would call Early Childhood Education (zero to 6 yrs old). B?sica refers to elementary school: 1st through 8th grade. And Media refers to high school (what is called Bachillerato), and is the same as 9-12, but is called Primero de bachiller, Segundo de bachiller and so on. These are actually broken up into what they call two "cycles," the first for 9th and 10th grade and the second for 11th and 12th. To move from B?sica to Media (in other words 8th to 9th), a student needs to pass national exams, or Pruebas Nacionales. And to graduate from Media (quarto de bachiller--12th grade), the student also has to pass Pruebas Nacionales. (Side note, there is controversy regarding these exams. One particular scandal broke out last summer, but that's a discussion for another place.) And when they graduate from Media (12th grade), students are given the title of Bachiller.

In fact, there really isn't that much difference between the ways in which the systems are set up. Only the language is different to describe the different levels. However, of course, there is a difference in practice. I know of students who attended public schools who only finished 8th grade (at 19 years of age from being held back so many times). And there are some complicated rules about passing and failing classes (various end-of-semester chances to redo exams if a student fails). I don't want to explain those here because it's a lot of information. These rules for passing/failing are the reason that students of different ages can end up in the same classes (this happens far more often in public schools).

But, there are many American-type private schools in this country, particularly in Santo Domingo. And there is no serious difficulty managing the two systems because most of it is rather similar. The biggest difference is that the Dominican system mandates exactly which classes need to be taught to all students each year. Again, you can see this breakdown by looking at the curricular documents on the SEE websites if you're interested. This is somewhat troublesome because when the private schools have to add in more hours for English language arts, there are pretty much too many classes and not enough time in the day. And it creates the situation where students likely have to take more classes (not necessarily as much time in each class though) than students do in the US.

Anyway, I'm simplifying the situation a bit. But I'm not sure how the educational system was described to the original poster that seemed so difficult. Perhaps it seemed complicated because the person was explaining the reality in public schools rather than the system that is set up by the Secretar?a.

To summarize:
1st-8th, then exit exams to be able to move to high school
9th-12 (or primer a cuarto de bachiller), then exit exams to graduate and be able to move on to university.

Hope this helps!

pechugitzzz said:

Una de las razones que muchas personas como la se?ora que mencionaste solo terminan la primaria, es por que en muchos lugares rurales de nuestro pais como san jose de las matas, ayy escuelas primarias en cada campo, pero talves 1 escuela secundaria en un solo campo. Y como el transporte publico es bien escaso es bien dificil para muchas personas que viven es sectores lejanos llegar a donde estan la escuela secundarias. Lamentablemente ayy muchas personas de nuestro campo que no tienen un bachillerato pero no es por que no quieran terminar la escuela, si no muchas veces es por la situacion que se encuentran que no pueden terminar.

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I hear you man, but listen. Leaving these 2 women out of the picture I met another 2 women who havent completed high school. And you never find out directly its always in an indirect manner because I tend not to judge until I decide if I can benefit from knowing this person or is this just nonsense waiting to pass. And from both of them I just found out today, when one of them told me she is going to night school. Thats cool, she s working to finish the program, but she is 37. I asked her why she didnt finish 20 years ago and her answer was that simply she had to go to work to make money. And I was confused because I thought secundaria was gratis, y ella me dijo que si, pero la universidad no. Entonces le pregunte, te vas a la uni o la secundaria? But she isnt from the campo she is from Santiago.
The other one is from or spent time in Puerto Plata but she is 35. I understand life gets in the way when you are trying to live but what happened to those 18 years of your life?
Now, she your last sentence is what I understand to be the case when I jump to my conclusions. It took you 20 years to finish or attempt to finish high school for selfish reasons that you have. I dont want to get too far off on a tangent here, but...seriously I applaud their attempts to go back to school but I think there is an belief that for women they wont NEED education because beauty and luck will make a way for them.
So apparently in your example they dont have a high school close enough to them so they dont go. And transporte no puede confiar si llegaria o no. OK. Bien. Pero no me digas que no puede hacer esfuerza a estudiar a cumplir el bachi en una ciudad como Santiago? Y hace mas que 10 anos que penso a hacerlo? No me diga este por favor. Porque quiero saber que Ud hizo por los ultimos 10 anos? La vida aqui no esta tan dinamica que no puede volver a la escuela. Well, thats my take on it. I hear so much BS that when that comes across the pike, I just cut them off. YA ME BOYYYYYY!!!!!!!! I lose total interest. You may be right in the country it may be difficult but in Santiago, you re lazy.

suarezn said:

People who don't finish high school in The DR is not because availability, but because just like anywhere in the world there are people who just don't care for school. In the DR in addition to regular high school they have night school, weekend school and you can even get your diploma by listening to the classes on the radio (Radio Santa Maria)...At least you used to back when I was growing up. I'm sure nowadays they offer some of it on the web as well.
A lot of those who finish high school don't go on to college due to lack of job prospects.

Now as to the quality o the education that's another matter as someone already said.

In The DR there's typically NOT a desire to try to keep kids together in classes by age such as in The US. This means if your kid is smart enough he/she could finish high school and be in college at a very young age (I did). Kids can and are typically enrolled in pre-school around 2 years old and typically start on first grade around 5/6 years old.

Physical education (sports) is not as big of a component as it is in The US. Mostly because of lack of facilities and probably because Dominicans are not a crazy about sports as Americans are (except for baseball).

Music and art education is pretty much non-existent in regular schools again due mostly to lack of instruments, supplies, etc. In spite of this we still turn out great musicians, but most of these are either self taught or go to private music schools.

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Bro, this was a great answer. It explained so much to me. It gave me first hand reference. See, I didnt want to say it but I had suspected it was as so. Many people just dont prioritize education. Which is odd to me, because apparently no one draws a correlation between that an unemployment(and especially underemployment). I know there are many underemployed college graduates here but at least with that you have room to move up. With no high school education you cant move anywhere. I meet all these people who want you to help them get a nicer job but they dont know how to do anything. The men arent literate to do anything besides washing cars and the women have limited computer skills and everyone has non Castillian spelling(now I only bring that up because spoken language can be anything, but written language has to have some obligatory rules, right?)
A. I ll buy that, thats cool, you can study for your bachillerato por la radio? Thats perfect for the folks in the country. A FM radio signal(50kW) has a range of 80 miles.
B. I get the 2nd statement. Its the same in the US, people dont go to college for lack of finances to pay for it.
C. I think the youngsters would be interested in anything athletic giving the exposure to quality instruction and facilities. They picked up baseball from Americans, so given the facilities they could learn basketball(the Chinese did), football-real American football or even soccer. And you would also think a country that is an island could produce world class swimmers. It is the same with boxing. Look at all the talent that comes out of Jamaica and Puerto Rico? Whats different there than here? Its not the diet.

RacerX said:

I hear you man, but listen. Leaving these 2 women out of the picture I met another 2 women who havent completed high school. And you never find out directly its always in an indirect manner because I tend not to judge until I decide if I can benefit from knowing this person or is this just nonsense waiting to pass. And from both of them I just found out today, when one of them told me she is going to night school. Thats cool, she s working to finish the program, but she is 37. I asked her why she didnt finish 20 years ago and her answer was that simply she had to go to work to make money. And I was confused because I thought secundaria was gratis, y ella me dijo que si, pero la universidad no. Entonces le pregunte, te vas a la uni o la secundaria? But she isnt from the campo she is from Santiago.
The other one is from or spent time in Puerto Plata but she is 35. I understand life gets in the way when you are trying to live but what happened to those 18 years of your life?
Now, she your last sentence is what I understand to be the case when I jump to my conclusions. It took you 20 years to finish or attempt to finish high school for selfish reasons that you have. I dont want to get too far off on a tangent here, but...seriously I applaud their attempts to go back to school but I think there is an belief that for women they wont NEED education because beauty and luck will make a way for them.
So apparently in your example they dont have a high school close enough to them so they dont go. And transporte no puede confiar si llegaria o no. OK. Bien. Pero no me digas que no puede hacer esfuerza a estudiar a cumplir el bachi en una ciudad como Santiago? Y hace mas que 10 anos que penso a hacerlo? No me diga este por favor. Porque quiero saber que Ud hizo por los ultimos 10 anos? La vida aqui no esta tan dinamica que no puede volver a la escuela. Well, thats my take on it. I hear so much BS that when that comes across the pike, I just cut them off. YA ME BOYYYYYY!!!!!!!! I lose total interest. You may be right in the country it may be difficult but in Santiago, you re lazy.

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En eso tienes razon, una persona que vive en la ciudad cerca de todo no tiene excuse para decir que no termino high school. Pero we can't judge these women becauce we don't know in what situacion they were 10/15 years ago. Sometimes life is hard and we can make choises that are not wise at all, buy heyy aunke ya estan un pokito maduras, they choose to go back and finish y para hacer eso uno tiene que tener mucha fuerza de voluntad.

RacerX said:

And you would also think a country that is an island could produce world class swimmers.

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Swimming is about having access to quality pool time and coaching, not about how much natural water surrounds your country. Also, the sport has to be developed within the culture. I can't count how many Dominicans I've met who don't know how to swim and they live minutes from the beach.

You also have to ask, how many Olympic size pools exist in the DR? What is the infrastructure of their coaching and training facilities?

Granted, some countries like American Samoa do more with less in terms of grooming American football prospects, but after high school they send players to top Division-I programs all over the United States. Those 4 years of training and playing with top-notch equipment and coaching is what really makes the difference.

But this example is more of an aberration and certainly not how a country should prepare it's athletes for success in a particular sport if they want to develop world-class athletes.

if a girl "gets married" while she's in high school (you know, "gets married" or just has sex with someone) and the principal finds out, she has to go to night school. and there's not always space for her in night school. if a girl gets knocked up - to night school she goes.

there are some reasons she might not have finished.

the weekend programs - like prepara - are free. but you gotta be able to get there, and if there isn't a school near you, it's money you might not have. and a lot of uneducated women work as domestic help and don't have the weekend off.

in the small towns, you can enroll as a "free" student and only go to take tests. good if you're self motivated, but c'mon? how many people can really do it?

there are lots of reasons people can't go to school. even in a city like santiago.