NewsWhore
03-03-2011, 04:10 PM
Economist Miguel Ceara-Hatton, who has coordinated the United Nations Human Development Reports on the Dominican Republic in recent years, writes today in online newspaper Perspectiva Ciudadana about the reasons why education in the Dominican Republic has kept getting worse over the years.
He highlights that more people have access to education, but he says indicators show that "education is uniformly bad all over the country." He says that quality indicators for education in the DR are below the averages for Latin America and for countries with similar wealth as the DR.
Why has education in the DR deteriorated so much?
He outlines the three logical processes that mark the priority of public services and particularly of education. These are: accumulation of capital, strength of the rule of law, and the ideology of the administration.
Referring to the accumulation of capital, he says that the Dominican economy is based on free zones and tourism, both of which compete on prices and do not demand high quality human capital or great skills, only primary education skills. Nevertheless he points out that 46% of people in employment had not completed primary school. Of those who completed their studies, only 26% finished primary school, 20% high school and only 11% received a university degree. This explains the bad quality of Dominican labor force, says Ceara-Hatton.
The establishment of a rule based on the law with all its consequences that obliges the government to guarantee minimum education and health services to the population. In societies where resources are very unequally distributed, the institutional and power structures reproduce the inequalities and generate socially excluding dynamics where access to public goods and services is segmented according to the level of access to wealth and power. "In this case, only a redistribution and democratization of power can guarantee the materialization of rights for individuals," he writes. As a consequence, he says Dominican society is lagging behind in demanding better education, because what is also lacking is the empowering of citizens and development dynamics that change the relation of power.
He also highlights as a third factor the ideologies of the people in power. "As I have said so many times, in the DR politics is a deal that enables access to the national budget and the only way citizens have access to this is through the political patronage system, that attributes as a favor what should be a citizen's right".
Moreover, he says politics has created a "cult of things." "It is a way of appropriating state resources for oneself," he said. "Constructions allow for great unforeseen leaks of money. And second, political success is measured by the number of avenues, highways, buildings and things that are made and not by quality of life."
"The consequence of all the above is the quality of education we have in this country, and the state of most of public services. They could not be worse," he writes.
"The problem has not been a lack of resources, but inadequate priorities. Neither has there been a lack of laws, pacts, agreements, workshops, documents or commitments. All has been done, signed and nothing has been fulfilled. Nothing happens."
Ceara-Hatton called for citizen empowerment and the social mobilization that awakens the will to make education a national priority. "Because fair access to education should be a matter of rights, but in the DR today it is a matter of power."
www.perspectivaciudadana.com/contenido.php?itemid-35942 (http://www.perspectivaciudadana.com/contenido.php?itemid-35942)
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#6)
He highlights that more people have access to education, but he says indicators show that "education is uniformly bad all over the country." He says that quality indicators for education in the DR are below the averages for Latin America and for countries with similar wealth as the DR.
Why has education in the DR deteriorated so much?
He outlines the three logical processes that mark the priority of public services and particularly of education. These are: accumulation of capital, strength of the rule of law, and the ideology of the administration.
Referring to the accumulation of capital, he says that the Dominican economy is based on free zones and tourism, both of which compete on prices and do not demand high quality human capital or great skills, only primary education skills. Nevertheless he points out that 46% of people in employment had not completed primary school. Of those who completed their studies, only 26% finished primary school, 20% high school and only 11% received a university degree. This explains the bad quality of Dominican labor force, says Ceara-Hatton.
The establishment of a rule based on the law with all its consequences that obliges the government to guarantee minimum education and health services to the population. In societies where resources are very unequally distributed, the institutional and power structures reproduce the inequalities and generate socially excluding dynamics where access to public goods and services is segmented according to the level of access to wealth and power. "In this case, only a redistribution and democratization of power can guarantee the materialization of rights for individuals," he writes. As a consequence, he says Dominican society is lagging behind in demanding better education, because what is also lacking is the empowering of citizens and development dynamics that change the relation of power.
He also highlights as a third factor the ideologies of the people in power. "As I have said so many times, in the DR politics is a deal that enables access to the national budget and the only way citizens have access to this is through the political patronage system, that attributes as a favor what should be a citizen's right".
Moreover, he says politics has created a "cult of things." "It is a way of appropriating state resources for oneself," he said. "Constructions allow for great unforeseen leaks of money. And second, political success is measured by the number of avenues, highways, buildings and things that are made and not by quality of life."
"The consequence of all the above is the quality of education we have in this country, and the state of most of public services. They could not be worse," he writes.
"The problem has not been a lack of resources, but inadequate priorities. Neither has there been a lack of laws, pacts, agreements, workshops, documents or commitments. All has been done, signed and nothing has been fulfilled. Nothing happens."
Ceara-Hatton called for citizen empowerment and the social mobilization that awakens the will to make education a national priority. "Because fair access to education should be a matter of rights, but in the DR today it is a matter of power."
www.perspectivaciudadana.com/contenido.php?itemid-35942 (http://www.perspectivaciudadana.com/contenido.php?itemid-35942)
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#6)