The Ministry of Education (Minerd) is in the process of adding 800,000 more students to the Extended School Day Program. The education authorities are assessing candidates for between 6,000 and 7,000 teaching posts within the system. Deputy Minister Luis Matos and Human Resources director Vivian Baez told Listin Diario that their original target for the coming school year was to add 600,000 to the current 200,000 students in the Extended School Day Program. However, they said that the goals were changed to try and add 800,000 to the current group for a total of nearly a million students in the full day program. They added that 21,000 candidates were considered during the 2014 Eighth Contest for Teaching Posts. The greatest shortage is of science and mathematics teachers, followed by secondary school teachers. This is only the second time that there has been a contest for high school teachers. As a side note, Deputy Minister Matos said that 50% of the candidates failed the test on logic with one candidate scoring a 0 (zero) and others scoring perfect 20s in the test. Candidates have to have at least a bachelor’s degree and go through the selection process.
Updated onUpdated on Jul 7, 2014 at 4:32 PM