Education Minister Angel Hernandez says his priority is getting children to learn to read well from first to fourth grade. Hernandez told Diario Libre editors and reporters during an interview published on Monday, 24 October 2022, that public schools have been passed all students despite the deficiencies in learning skills of the child. “The children are passed from first to second grade and nobody seems to care if they learned because they are given automatic passes. Then they go from second to third, and no one cares. And when they get to fourth grade, they know nothing,” said the Minister.
“All efforts in the next few years, at least while I am in charge, all resources of the Ministry are going to be concentrated in those four first elementary grades, to reduce the deficiencies in learning,” he told Diario Libre. He said the strategy is now “Timely Learning to Read,” to motivate teachers to ensure that the children under their care learn to read and write well during those first four years.
In the interview, the Minister addressed the wasteful spending of the 4% of the Gross Domestic Product in public education since 2012. He also focused on the past two years of the Abinader administration and the many irregularities in procurement, including the authoring of digital books by a driver, plagiarism in school textbooks, the RD$5.5 billion paid to suppliers that did not deliver, including 300,000 electronic devices.
He addressed the billions the government has spent on teacher staff and administrative staff and mentioned the too many cases of teachers and staff on the payroll but that do not show up to work. This includes people on extended health leaves and those who live abroad but still get paid. Hernandez said the Ministry is undergoing an internal reorganization for efficiency in the use of the budget. Hernandez says a major audit is ongoing at the Ministry of Education to reduce wasteful spending.
Hernandez’s predecessor, Roberto Furcal was removed after President Luis Abinader finally acquiesced to pressures of the media and education experts. For two years, the media had carried stories pinpointing major irregularities in procurement, hiring at the Ministry of Education, wasteful spending and lack of decisions to ensure quality public education.
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Diario Libre
Diario Libre
25 October 2022