“Education is the other name for freedom,” Dominican leader says

San Cristobal, Dominican Republic.- President Danilo Medina, speaking Monday before some 1,500 students at San Cristobal’s Loyola Polytechnic, said the country has made ??great efforts for the start of the school year, because “education is the other name for freedom.”

He said the fact that 98.8 percent of children who must enter school did so practically set a record.

"I therefore want to establish the Extended Shift System throughout the Dominican Republic," the president said, in reference to the planned schooldays from 8am to 3pm and even longer.

He said in his race for the presidency he pledged to transform the country’s education into an inclusive one, "not because it’s deliberately exclusionary, but because the socio-economic conditions prevent them from getting educated."

"So that in every school in the country children are entitled to receive breakfast and lunch, we will try to match public education with private education," Medina said, and congratulated the students "because you’re in a center that practices academic excellence. I’m convinced that education is the other name for freedom."