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Santo Domingo.- Senator Omar Fernández voiced deep concern on Tuesday over the lack of available spots for Dominican students in public schools across Greater Santo Domingo, just 45 days ahead of the 2025–2026 school year. Calling the situation “alarming” and unconstitutional, he criticized the government’s failure to ensure access to education and announced plans to visit local schools in the National District to hear directly from principals and parents struggling to enroll their children.
Fernández, a representative of the Fuerza del Pueblo (FP) party, highlighted that many families have shifted from private to public education due to rising costs, only to find overcrowded classrooms and long waiting lists. He cited recent reports indicating hundreds of students are still without placement. The senator promised to formally notify the Ministry of Education of every anomaly he identifies during his visits, urging swift intervention.
He also questioned the government’s educational spending, noting that despite over 900 billion pesos invested over the past three years—equivalent to 4% of GDP annually—school infrastructure and policy remain inadequate. Fernández warned of severe overcrowding, with up to 40 students per class, and expressed concern over the growing presence of undocumented foreign students, particularly Haitians, arguing that this demographic challenge also requires urgent policy attention.
Simply put the Dominican Republic needs to get serious about education. Throwing some money at a problem is only a band aid approach and it is not a solution. This website has posted countless articles on how good the DR is doing in terms of tourism and other development. Where is the additional money going? It’s not on education. The first thing that needs to happen is to build more schools and to repair the ones already in existence. Next you have to improve pay for teachers so that they earn a living wage. Increased pay would also help attract higher quality teachers. Hookers in the capital and Punta Cana make way more money than teachers. This is shameful. Finally the powers that be will have to allocate more money for educational purposes and put in safegurds to insure that the money is used for it’s intended purpose not as bribes or a slush fund for corrupt government officials.
This individual needs to be cautious about the topics he discusses in public. 4% I believe, is the constitutional minimum of GDP to be spent on education, even though that may well be inadequate. The leader of this party, and a former president, deliberately underspent on education during his terms as president, while the leader of the PLD.
The knock-on effect of that unconstitutional action may well account for some of the problems now being experienced. Maybe he needs to ask his party leader why he restricted funding for education when he was president and point out the effect that has today.