Education Minister Antonio Peña Mirabal says the government will wait to convene the National Education Council (CNE) to decide on the school year. In an interview with Huchi Lora and Amelia Deschamps for El Dia TV, Peña Mirabal spoke up against closing the school year now. He said the school year does not officially end until mid-June.
He said the authorities have discussed different alternatives. He said students are benefiting from online classes over the Ministry of Education virtual education platforms. Private schools have also established online platforms to continue classes.
Peña Mirabal understands it would do more damage to close the school year now because the virtual classes are keeping the students busy while they remain at home during the present lockdown due to the coronavirus epidemic.
In the Dominican Republic, classes closed on 12 March in order to give way to the celebration of the municipal elections. Several schools in the country are used as polling places.
When the coronavirus epidemic escalated, the government called a state of emergency situation and ordered the schools not to reopen. That means, students have been at home for more than a month now.
Education Minister Peña Mirabal acknowledges that 70% of the curriculum had been covered at the time of the stopping of classes. He favors awaiting the development of events to determine what will be done with the 2019-2020 school year.
He did say that private schools operate as businesses. Nevertheless, when asked about schools that had cancelled access to virtual platforms to students with tuition was in arrears, he said that satisfactory agreements had been reached for both parties in those cases.
The minister says that private schools have their own contractual relationships with the parents. Nevertheless, a constitutional ruling (TC-0058/13) establishes that lack of payment of tuition cannot be used to penalize children in any way.
Read more in Spanish:
Hoy
Listin Diario
22 April 2020