Mu Kien Adriana Sang Ben, of the Department of Education of the Pontificia Unviersidad Catolica Madre y Maestra told Hoy newspaper in an interview that one of the main problems affecting the quality of public education in the DR is the fact that of 1,000 hours on the official calendar school year, students receive barely 400. A diagnostic study carried out by the SocioEducation Forum showed that of every 45 minutes school period, only 30 minutes actually go to the delivering of instruction. When this is taken into consideration, the actual learning available time is even less than the 400 hours. This is because it takes the teacher five minutes to start the class, which usually concludes five minutes before the period is over.
Celeste Abreu of the Instituto Tecnologico de Santo Domingo (INTEC) said that another major problem is that teachers are overburdened with work, and many teach in three shifts during the day. A teacher who has to face students in three shifts throughout the day cannot plan adequately, implement better teaching practices, nor seek innovation, let alone buy a book,” she stated. Sang Ben urged that the government comply with the Education Law that stipulates that 15% of the budget is allotted to education so that the investment in education accounts for 8% of the Gross Domestic Product. The DR funds allotted to education do not reach 2% of GDP. This compared to 5% in Costa Rica and 15% in Taiwan. Furthermore, she said that teachers with true vocation need to be hired, conditions for these improved, and education in values be delivered to create better citizens.