The Education System of the Dominican Republic

Inclusive education in the Dominican Republic: teachers’ perceptions of and practices towards students with diverse learning needs

“…Still, our findings echo prior research in the DR, which indicates a need for inclusive teacher education and training and more teacher research to better understand the country's progress toward SDG4 (Jovine, 2017). While the Dominican government has demonstrated a commitment to improving the quality of teaching and learning processes and fostering safe and inclusive schools, especially for the most vulnerable students, efforts have been highly centralized and resources have not been distributed equitably across socio-economic levels, geographies, or ethnic-racial divides (Hamm-Rodríguez and Veras Diaz, 2021). In our study, even the two participating schools -a two-hour car ride apart -had unequal access to resources, such as equipped libraries or Support Spaces to provide remedial support to primary-age students.…”

“…This article focuses on the Dominican Republic, a country which -prior to the COVID-19 pandemic -had some of the highest rates of economic productivity in the region of Latin America and the Caribbean, yet low levels of learning and high levels of educational inequality across groups of students (World Bank, 2016). Over the past thirty years, the Dominican Republic Ministry of Education (MINERD), government bodies, and civil society organizations have demonstrated a growing commitment to universal access to education and increased attention to educational quality (Hamm-Rodríguez and Veras Diaz, 2021).…”