Amarante

Amarante Baret Says Education is Committed to Investing 4 Percent of the Funds
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 10/09/2013

The Minister of Education, Mr. Carlos Amarante Baret, said today that MINERD is seeking a legal solution that would allow for any portion of the 4% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that was earmarked for the construction of new schools and which cannot be used this year, to not be lost and to be allowed to be used in 2014 for the purpose for which those funds were allocated in the first place.

He said that based on what President Danilo Medina has said that the 4% of the funds is untouchable, if for some reason there are two or three billion pesos left from the building program, a legal recourse will be sought to allow for the use of those funds next year.

The official said, however, that according to the programming that the Ministry of Education has implemented so far, between 90% and 100% of the education budget would have been used by the end of this year.

Amarante Baret stated that, because in the Dominican budget system the institutions lose any unspent funds at the end of the fiscal year, and that those funds are transferred to the Single Account of the National Treasury, a number of sectors have expressed their concern if such funds are not used.

He said that based on what President Danilo Medina has said that the 4% of the funds is untouchable, if for some reason there are two or three billion pesos left from the building program, a legal recourse will be sought to allow for the use of those funds next year.

“I think that until December 31st, the budgetary implementation in the programming plan that is earmarked for the building of new schools, will increase exponentially and will run close to 100% or 90%,” said the Minister of Education in an interview for El Gobierno de la Mañana program.

He assured the people that if any item in the budget is delayed, it will be implemented in addition to the 109 billion pesos set forth in the 2014 General Budget, “because has already been committed.”

Literacy and the Pact for Education

Mr. Amarante Baret highlighted the support received by the initiative of the President of the Republic, Danilo Medina, to promote the National Literacy Plan to eradicate illiteracy, as well as the Pact for Education Reform to achieve quality education for all.

He praised the fact that the country has never had such an ambitious plan and one that includes the participation of all social and political forces of the nation. “We must be fair, the municipal governments of the various political parties are involved ‘to the bone’ in the National Literacy Plan, the reformers, the PLDs, PRDs, all are participating,” he said.

In regard to the Pact for Education, he said that it is an opportunity to seriously consider, as a country, what we want to do about our education, although it has been sufficiently diagnosed and everyone knows what the problems of the Dominican education system are.

“We all know that it lacks the quality that is demanded nowadays; we all know that the schedule and school calendar are not met; we all know that we must dignify the lives of our teachers and raise their training levels. The issue is whether we are all going to make a commitment to push in the same direction,” said the Minister of Education