Miriam Diaz Santana, director of Planning of the Fundacion APEC, writes in Hoy newspaper that if President Leonel Fernandez really wanted to demonstrate that education is really a priority of his government, he has only to increase funding to regional levels.
She points out that despite the President on several occasions declaring education the top priority of his government, the budget this year is so low that it is difficult to convince anyone that the government is serious about education. “Especially when the government is announcing and starting so many projects costing billions, and so little of these funds are gong to the education sector,” she writes.
The General Law of Education 66-97 fixes the budget for public education (without including superior education) at no less than 16% of the National Budget or 4% of GDP, whichever is more, she writes. “Nevertheless, the Ministry of Education budget is little more than 8.5% of the budget.
“Upon this violation to the law, the government has argued that adjustments have had to be made to adjust to demands made by the International Monetary Fund and that the large foreign debt does not permit the fulfillment of the law.
The education technician points out that the DR is one of the countries in the world that spends less on education. She indicates that UNESCO statistics show that the Americas average was to spend 5.6% of GDP on education in 2002. In the DR only 2.3% of GDP is allotted.
While education has been gaining in budgetary importance in the rest of the countries, in the DR its share of the budget has declined. In 1990, the country spent 10% of total spending in education, when the regional average was 13.2%, and 14 countries were above 15%. 15 years later, after several reforms of the education system, instead of improving, the country has gone backwards, with education making up only 8.5% of the national budget.
Santana writes that this explains why the just released 2005 UNDP Human Development report shows that the DR is the country in the past 50 years that despite showing the highest level of economic growth in Latin America and the Caribbean, is 13 from bottom up of 177 countries of those that has least taken advantage of its economic development to improve its human development indicators.