Daniel Sánchez questions the Dominican educational model after millionaire investment
The president of the Duartian National Party (PND), Daniel Sánchez, has made an urgent call to transform the direction of education in the Dominican Republic. Although the country has maintained a sustained investment in the sector for more than a decade, Sánchez warns that the results in student learning remain insufficient for today’s demands.
According to the leader, the root problem does not lie in the scarcity of resources, but in the persistence of an obsolete pedagogical model. Sánchez criticizes that the system continues to cling to methods based exclusively on memorization and repetition, ignoring the opportunities provided by modern technology and artificial intelligence.
Budgetary challenges and resource management
Since 2013, the Dominican State has allocated a cumulative figure exceeding 40 billion dollars to the education sector. However, Sánchez details a concerning distribution of the budget:
- Approximately 92% of the budget is consumed by current expenses, such as salaries and social assistance programs.
- Only about 8% is directed toward capital investments, such as the construction of new schools and the modernization of laboratories.
- There is an outstanding debt of more than 4 billion pesos to school construction contractors.
- An infrastructure deficit reaching 28,000 classrooms is estimated.
The challenge is not only to increase the money allocated to education, but to ensure that those resources translate into better learning and greater opportunities for Dominican students.
Daniel Sánchez, president of the PND
International assessments and teaching quality
The low performance in international tests such as PISA, where Dominican students show deficiencies in mathematics, science, and reading comprehension, reflects a crisis that, according to Sánchez, manifests itself from basic education. This situation was aggravated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which deepened existing learning gaps.
To reverse this scenario, the PND president proposes a roadmap focused on three fundamental pillars:
- Pedagogical reform: Abandoning traditional methods for innovative approaches.
- Depoliticization: Reducing the influence of partisan politics in school management.
- Teaching excellence: Implementing continuous training programs that integrate educational neuroscience, neuropedagogy, and psychopedagogy.
Finally, the leader emphasized that educational quality depends on better teacher preparation and more efficient administration, ensuring that compliance with 4% of GDP translates into a true transformation of the national system.
