Dominican Rep makes strong bet on improving education infrastructure

The Dominican Republic will invest 24.3bn pesos (US$450mn) in the education sector in the next few years.

The wide-ranging program was unveiled by President Luis Abinader on Wednesday and includes investments in building new facilities and refurbishing existing ones.

Of the total, over 5bn pesos will go to the construction of 38 polytechnic schools, while 270 existing ones will be modernized and receive new equipment, Abinader said during a press conference. 

Another 3.40bn pesos will be transferred to local authorities for refurbishment projects. 

“We’re transferring an unprecedented amount of 3.40bn pesos to district and school directors, which will help us decentralize and better execute spending for 2,159 schools,” he said. 

The program also includes funds to build more than 1,000 modules of three classrooms each for primary education.