Spanish
69 proposals were approved unanimously at the First Pedagogical Congress of the ADP
Santo Domingo. – The First Pedagogical Congress of the Dominican Association of Teachers (ADP) approved 69 proposals that emerged from the plenary and pedagogical groups.
Among these proposals, teachers raised the need to transform the evaluation system to prioritize the development of skills over grades, eliminating automatic promotion and establishing rigorous criteria to ensure effective learning before academic advancement.
This proposal arose from the debates held by teachers in the pedagogical groups, when they worked on Axis 6: “The Dominican educational model and civic education”. “Teachers express that the evaluation focused on the grade over learning, along with automatic promotion policies, weakens academic demands and promotes a culture of student conformity”.
The teaching profession recognizes that the preparation of students for the challenges of the current world is partial and insufficient, with significant deficiencies in real digital skills, scientific thinking, financial education, and socio-emotional skills. The president of the ADP, Eduardo Hidalgo, when submitting the 69 proposals to a vote, indicated that these will be compiled in a document that will be made known to all Dominican society. We recommend reading:The First Pedagogical Congress, with the slogan “Dominican Education Thought From the Teaching Profession,” brought together some 500 delegates from all over the country, who during Monday, April 13, and Tuesday, April 14, worked on the six thematic axes and the base document of the proposals made by the pedagogical groups, which together resulted in 69 approved initiatives. The congress also approved that two other additional proposals be considered by the National Executive Committee.
Another of the approved proposals establishes that systematic family-school linkage programs should be developed that go beyond traditional meetings and include parental training, educational support workshops at home, effective communication mechanisms and, when necessary, a system of consequences for non-compliance with family responsibilities in the educational process of their children. "The teaching profession is perceived as the backbone of the public education system, but it urgently requires strengthening in continuing education, job stability, decent conditions, and recognition of the central role of teachers in educational transformation," the teachers stated. They also proposed developing a continuous teacher training policy that articulates university theory with real classroom practice, including contextualized programs, reducing the number of students per classroom, and recognizing the diverse socioeconomic conditions in which Dominican educators work. "Implement a national program of continuous, practical, and situated teacher training that includes in-classroom mentoring, experiential workshops, and real pedagogical accompaniment by trained technicians," they suggested. "We need them to recognize that we are professionals capable of innovating and transforming education, but we require decent conditions, contextualized training, respected pedagogical authority, and real support from the system to face the complexity of our classrooms and effectively fulfill our educational mission," they expressed. Regarding the five pillars axis, teachers proposed to establish real mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating its implementation, with specific and measurable indicators that allow verifying the transition from theory to practice in educational centers.
