President Leonel Fernandez resumed the National Merit Scholarship Program that honors individual students who show exceptional academic ability. The students are invited to the Presidential Palace, where the President himself will award them with their prizes. During his previous administration, the selected students received computers. During the awards ceremony, President Fernandez encouraged the students to take control of their own development and acknowledged that the role of the state is not only to guarantee education, but also to offer quality education.
During the event that marked the reinstatement of the program that had been discontinued by the Mejia government, President Leonel Fernandez, First Lady Margarita Cedeno, Education Minister Alejandrina German and Vice-President Rafael Alburquerque received 183 outstanding students of elementary and middle schools.