Jose Ramon Rodriguez, the education consultant to the Cooperative Association for Investment and Employment (Coop Aspire) says that 25% of Dominican students attend private schools. He advocated for government support for private schools to adopt the extended school day whereby students enter at 8am for a school day that ends at 4pm.
During a conference entitled The Extended School Day: Hopes and Challenges for Private Education, which was attended by dozens of private school principals, recommended that the government also invest in the infrastructure of the private schools so that they can implement the initiative.
Rodriguez said that the startup of the Extended School Day in a “well-intentioned” effort by President Danilo Medina, will only succeed if the private schools are included.