During his state of the nation address on 27 February, President Danilo Medina listed the first actions his government has taken to improve public education in the Dominican Republic. He inherited a country that is ranked in 143rd place on a list of 144 countries in quality of primary education by the World Economic Forum.
During his speech, he highlighted policies that include the allocation of 4% to pre-university public education, the National Literacy Plan, longer hours for public education, construction of 10,000 classrooms and the opening of the San Luis Community College, built during the Fernandez administration.
President Danilo Medina said that in a few days time he would announce a National Plan designed to increase services to protect children between the ages of 0 and 5 and to consider the building of 100 new nurseries, and the same number of Community Centers with family networks.
He said that by the end of his term of office the country would have 350 nurseries and 1,100 Community Centers serving 426,000 families and 528,000 children under the age of five. He went on to say that he would also ensure that pre-primary education was available for 90% of five year olds.
He said that he wanted to ensure that children had protection, nutrition, health, and education during this, the most important stage of their lives.
He highlighted that they would develop a network of Integrated Help Centers for children up to the age of 10 across the country via the First Lady’s office.
Talking about his plan to extend the school day, he said that more than 33,000 children were now in the system, which was proving successful and by next August that figure should be 200,000.
Finally, talking about the National Literacy Plan, “Quisqueya Learns With You,” he said that over 100,000 people were now enrolled on the plan, with 7,000 teachers.
http://presidencia.gov.do/detalle-discurso.php?type=release&id=1450