Action for Education (EDUCA), PLAN Dominican Republic, and PREAL released the second education report card on the Dominican Republic in Santo Domingo on November 9. The launch featured an address by PREAL Co-director Jeffrey Puryear and attracted over 80 participants, including Vice Ministers of Education Víctor Sánchez and Adarberto Martínez, Director of Evaluation Ancell Scheker, Director of the Dominican Institute of Research and Evaluation on Education Quality (IDEICE) Leo Valeiron, Director of Economic Studies David Lapaix, USAID Education Officer Jana Wooden, IDB representative to the DR Manuel Labrado, and representatives of NGOs, universities, the private sector, and the media, among others.

The report card, entitled El reto es la calidad (Quality is the Challenge) highlights the achievements and challenges of the Dominican education system in terms of coverage, quality, equity, teacher training, investment, and management, and emphasizes changes observed since the last report card in 2006.

Although the Dominican Republic has achieved significant advances in basic education coverage and teacher certification in recent decades, the quality of education continues to be a major challenge. Indeed, in a test of student learning in 16 Latin American countries, Dominican students scored at the bottom (UNESCO, 2007). In light of the proposals to improve education in the 10-Year Education Plan (2008-2018) and the National Development Strategy (2010-2030), it is critical that all Dominicans – government authorities and the general public – work to confront the problems of the education system, setting objectives and clear achievement indicators to follow-up on established goals.

The report card seeks to stimulate an informed discussion of the education challenges that the Dominican Republic faces internally and in comparison with other Latin American countries to provide an equitable, high quality, relevant education for all Dominican youth.

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