The new extended school day, which runs from 8am to 4pm, is forcing principals and teachers to innovate. The first four hours of the day usually go by normally, according to reporter Bethania Apolinar and photojournalist Jorge Cruz. In the first of their two-part series in Listin Diario, they report that the difficulties and the weaknesses in the new system become apparent after lunch. The lack of teachers has kept some schools from introducing the extended school day that is aimed at improving educational quality by adding more teaching hours.
The report shows that there is no doubt that this government initiative has revolutionized the experience, introducing everything from art to martial arts. The reporters found that the instructors of these new activities receive a stipend of merely RD$2,000 a month, which school administrators cover with the money received from leasing the school cafeterias. Some teachers are hoping that the Ministry of Education will formalize their appointments with a much better salary.
The reporters described how some of the teachers dealt with the new school day and how some of them are really tired at the end of the eight-hour day. One of the major issues is that dining facilities simply do not exist in many schools. In the school they visited, the “Republica Dominicana”, only first to third grade students can eat in a single area, and the rest of the students have to eat in their classrooms. There is apparently no kitchen and the food for the 1,300 students and staff at the school is supplied by an outside service. The journalists questioned the quality of the equipment used to ship the food to the school, pointing out that the plastic containers do not give a good impression. Finally, they reported a severe lack of teachers for the extended school hours.
www.listindiario.com/la-republica/2014/3/6/313247/Vivencias-en-una-escuela-de-jornada-extendida