{"id":241390,"date":"2025-09-15T07:21:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T11:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/?p=241390"},"modified":"2025-09-15T11:37:55","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T15:37:55","slug":"political-patronage-prevails-in-santo-domingo-school-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/2025\/09\/15\/political-patronage-prevails-in-santo-domingo-school-district\/","title":{"rendered":"Political patronage prevails in Santo Domingo school district"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img src=\"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Ministerio-de-Educacio\u0301n-MINERD-1024x512.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-216277\" width=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Ministerio-de-Educacio\u0301n-MINERD-1024x512.png 1024w, https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Ministerio-de-Educacio\u0301n-MINERD-300x150.png 300w, https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Ministerio-de-Educacio\u0301n-MINERD-768x384.png 768w, https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Ministerio-de-Educacio\u0301n-MINERD-1536x767.png 1536w, https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Ministerio-de-Educacio\u0301n-MINERD-2048x1023.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 706px) 89vw, (max-width: 767px) 82vw, 740px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>While the government struggles with improving the quality of education, political patronage seems to continue to prevail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a striking paradox, a new report by investigative journalist Nuria Piera reveals a government-funded system continued to be filled by &#8220;ghost employees&#8221; and nepotism, while the illiteracy rate among young people is on the rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Ministry of Education, which shoulders the largest payroll in the state, is again at the center of this scandal. With more than 120 billion pesos allocated for teacher salaries alone, the Ministry&#8217;s budget seems to being siphoned off by individuals who are not performing their duties. The evidence is clear: entire families are on the payroll without working, terminated employees continue to collect salaries, and &#8220;ghost&#8221; consultants receive lavish wages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This system, which appears to have been historically designed to be a haven for political patronage and nepotism, has become a hotbed of so-called &#8220;botellas&#8221;\u2014a term for public employees who are paid without having to show up to work. This issue is not isolated.  Piera denounces evidence in a single district in Greater Santo Domingo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more in Spanish:<br><a href=\"https:\/\/n.com.do\/2025\/08\/23\/nomina-de-educacion-en-el-distrito-10-01-escuela-fantasma-botellas-y-otras-irregularidades\/\">N Digital <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>15 September 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While the government struggles with improving the quality of education, political patronage seems to continue to prevail. In a striking paradox, a new report by investigative journalist Nuria Piera reveals a government-funded system continued to be filled by &#8220;ghost employees&#8221; and nepotism, while the illiteracy rate among young people is on the rise. The Ministry &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/2025\/09\/15\/political-patronage-prevails-in-santo-domingo-school-district\/\" class=\"more-link\">Read more\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[337,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241390"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241390"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":241444,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241390\/revisions\/241444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dr1.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}