What is a good education to you? The education you get before you go to college says a lot about who you will become as an adult, so what type of education would you want to see in schools? Many kids in the Dominican Republic don’t go to school and this has become a big problem because the government hasn’t done anything to prevent this or done anything to make the schools better.
According to Unicef, the law 136-03 “all boys, girls, and adolescents have the right to integral quality education to allow them to develop their potential and capabilities. If the government in the Dominican Republic doesn’t put in a system for education in the Dominican Republic then thousands of children will end up in the streets selling candy, fruits or washing windows for the rest of their lives. Around 435,000 children already live or work in these dangerous streets already and struggle to put their life together or what’s left of it. You might ask yourself well why don’t they go to school?
The problem is that there isn’t enough funding to help these kids grow, children and adults in the Dominican Republic don’t go to school because some people can’t afford to go to school or end up not getting enough support to be successful in what they want to study. Leaving many families in very bad conditions of living and not being able to support themselves or their families. Almost 30% of the population lives under extreme poverty. According to ipsnews. net, right now the government is only spending 4% of its investments on education.
This isn’t enough to even hold a school intact. This is why we should encourage the government of the Dominican republic to invest more on public education. Kids shouldn’t have to choose their future when their 5 years old, they should be given the opportunity to learn and develop what they really want to do in their life as they grow up. We need to make the officials in the Dominican Republic understand that school is important and that schools need certain resources in order for their child to grow and be who they desire.
Many kids in the Dominican Republic don’t go to school, when you are there you can see many of them from the ages of 10+ are on the streets selling candy, washing cars and doing whatever it takes to make a living. There is no law that makes all kids that are under the age of 18 to go to school, there are public schools but there aren’t enough resources in the schools such as books or even chalk to write on the boards. The system isn’t completely sunshine and rainbows like in the U.
S having counselors and college readiness class that teach us and help us get ready for college, many students get terrified of going to college because they don’t fully understand the concept of going to college and what it is like. And for families that live in the countryside are forced to walk more than 2 miles away to even get to school and learn on an empty stomach. For many people like Analdo Sanchez, who has studied in the Dominican Republic his whole life says ”There is no future and you will be working for your life to have a plate on the table.
For him highschool as just a lot of work and no help, at the end of the school day he would go home and try to do his homework by himself. In his school and in many others there aren’t people to there to talk to you about how college was like. We asked him if he felt as if school helped him prepare for college and he says, “No definitely not, they only tell you the material, going to the university for me was like starting over, but in the public schools they don’t have those resources, there is no one to tell you that everything is different or that their are people in college that could help you.
Many others like Arnaldo feel the same way. “More than a third of the Dominican Republic lives on less than $1. 25 a day and over 20 percent of the country lives in extreme poverty. Most of the poverty in the Dominican Republic is concentrated in the rural areas. The rural poverty rate is about three times as high as the urban poverty rate. ” says borgenproject. org. Without the right education many people find it difficult to make a living other than growing vegetation and selling them in markets or to companies.
Many children don’t go to school because they can barely afford a plate on the table, much less the school uniform and materials for school or they have to help their family out on the fields. Although the public schools are free, the government makes it an option to go to school when this shouldn’t be an option, for instance here many youth complain on how it is mandatory to go to school but they don’t realize this is a luxury that many wish they had. So since their isn’t any laws many parents take their kids out of school at a very young age to help the financial status of the family.
Of course education is key to your future and this is something that we don’t see in many of these kids. When they do learn something new they suck up the information like a sponge but without school there is no education. This also affects many of the adults as well given that many stay illiterate and close minded people because they learn basic knowledge or things that they know will help them survive, this doesn’t give them the opportunity to expand their knowledge to the maximum that it can take.
We should encourage the Dominican Republic to invest more on the education of the people in Dominican Republic. We could let the country know that freedom of education and knowledge is key for the growth of a country in total. The money could come from the taxes of the rich people living in the country and taken a percentage that the country makes with the tourist attractions. We could send volunteers to help build or rebuild schools and help set up an afterschool program for the district as well.
This way kids would be more encouraged to attend school when the see there are more resources such as books, computers, labs and a better education in general. Implementing more schools that would be closer to the families and could get to school in less time, given the kids a decent school breakfast so that they can walk into class with a good mindset for learning. All of these things are crucial, not only for the students but for the future if the Dominican Republic given that they mostly are run by the tourist attraction.
In conclusion we need to make sure that the government of the Dominican Republic make sure that it is looking more into their people and not only in the money that they are receiving from the tourist attractions or from sports. We want to make sure that more and more people want to go to college and make a living out of what they want to do for the rest of their lives. Creating better futures for the people should be the number one and most biggest concern, the more people that work the more money that can be brought to the government and back into the people as well.
Make programs that keep the youth off the streets and more into what they want to do when they are in college getting a degree, make sure that their are afterschool programs that help the students with their homework for at least two hours after school. These types of things would change the Dominican Republic as a whole and not tear it apart piece by piece. Let’s bring more professionals into our communities.
