Missing School Must be a Thing of the Past, Says Education Minister

Missing School Must be a Thing of the Past, Says Education Minister
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic 1/13/2012

Education Minister, Josefina Pimentel, urged school officials to continue raising awareness among parents and students’ tutors and to encourage them to send their children to school. She emphasized this by saying that missing a day of school here and there after a long weekend must be “a thing of the past.”

“I would like the work of school professionals to be more effective this year and to maintain stronger ties with the community, in that parents are a key element to assure that their children attend school on a regular basis,” said the Education Minister.

Minister Pimentel was speaking to national and regional school officials at a meeting of the Directorate of Community Participation of the Ministry of Education (MINERD in Spanish), held on Wednesday January 11th. The purpose of the meeting was to evaluate the process of uniting Course Committees and the Associations of Parents and Friends of the Schools (APMAE in Spanish).

Another purpose of the meeting was to evaluate last year’s election of the parents federations and district, regional and national tutors with the goal of articulating the organizational processes that guarantee the achievement of Policy 8 of the Ten Year Education Plan which proposes to stimulate the participation of family, community and non-governmental institutions in the development of policies, programs, educational projects as well as Social Dialogue which is one of the main principles defined by this plan.

“I would like the work of school professionals to be more effective this year and to maintain stronger ties with the community, in that parents are a key element to assure that their children attend school on a regular basis,” said the Education Minister.

As part of this meeting, Minister Pimentel gave 18 laptops to the same number of regional school officials of MINERD’s Directorate of Community Participation in order to improve and integrate their work into the system of networks which is functioning in the Ministry.

On the other hand, Rosa del Carmen Mena, Director of Community Participation, said another goal of the meeting was to get to know the Annual Operative Plan for 2012 and plan for the January-March trimester.

Ms. Mena urged school employees under her direction to encourage parents, tutors and friends of the schools to support the actions being carried out by the Ministry of Education in its effort to improve the quality of education in the Dominican Republic.

Minister Pimentel was accompanied at the meeting, attended by officials from 18 regional school districts, by Milagros Yost, advisor to MINERD’s participatory organizations.


From left to right: Rosa del Carmen Mena, Director of MINERD’s Community Participation and Josefina Pimentel, Minister of Education are giving laptops to regional school officials from San Cristóbal, Barahona and Puerto Plata: Carlos Guzmán, Julio Féliz Marmolejos and  Paulina Batista, respectively. Other school officials who also received laptops are in the background.