The Ministry of Education announced that it is seeking teachers in the US for its public school English education programs. Minister of Education Ligia Amada Melo said that locally there are not enough professors for the English programs at the public schools. She said that the Ministry will give priority to English language programs in public schools located in the eastern side of the city of Santo Domingo. She says that students there will be given priority for admission in the Las Americas Institute of Technology that is being built on Las Americas Highway. Minister Melo explained that the number of hours of English language training students enrolled in polytechnics are receiving has been upped to eight hours a week, from three. The Ministry expects students from the polytechnics to also apply at the Las Americas Institute of Technology. Minister Melo explained that the government has been working with the Instituto Cultural Dominico-Americano (ICDA), a major English as a second language school, to prepare 300 professors, which have benefited from scholarships to study English there. She said that they will be hiring from abroad as there are not enough English language teachers, nor French teachers to cover all openings in the public schools. So far, she said, teachers have come from the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, UNAPEC and UTESA language schools. She said the government requires the professors to have taken educational credits, so they are better prepared on how to teach a language. Furthermore, Minister Melo said that the government would be transferring the management of the polytechnic schools to the Salesiano religious congregation. She had praise for the graduates of the schools at present operated by the congregation.
