Education Minister Roberto Furcal has announced that 2.4 million public school students are back in school since 20 September 2021. Furcal has said that schools are obliged to receive all who have registered for classes.
Nevertheless, Diario Libre reports that around 800,000 students are not back in school. The reasons: their schools are still under repair, there are not sufficient teachers.
Primitiva Medina, secretary of social security of the executive committee of the Dominican Association of School Teachers (ADP) told Diario Libre that public school students that have returned to classes are also affected by a scarcity in text books and desks in the public schools that have reopened. She urged the Ministry of Education to rent locations for the students that have been left out.
Likewise, the Ministry of Education has yet to set a new date for the assessment of new public school teachers after the recent assessment was suspended when most of the teachers failed the test on 9 September 2021. The Presidency authorized that those who have completed studies at the Instituto Superior de Fromación Docente Salome Ureña and Intec university participate in the assessment. The Ministry of Education had impeded their participation on grounds that the students had not completed the formality of graduation.
The Ministry of Education under Roberto Furcal in 2020 and the first half of 2021 had concentrated on remote learning programs and invested heavily in electronic devices for the students. For months, the ADP teachers union had complained the government was not investing in preparing the public schools to reopen for in-person learning.
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Diario Libre
27 September 2021