Ministry of Education Opens School for Directors and Center for Teacher Training

Ministry of Education Opens School for Directors and Center for Teacher Training
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic 1/19/2012

Minister of Education, Josefina Pimentel, hosted the opening ceremony of the School for Directors for Quality Education (EDCE in Spanish) of the Ministry of Education and the Center for Multiple Learning Resources (CEREMA in Spanish).  Both organizations will strengthen the permanent training and professional development programs included in the plan of action being developed by the Education Ministry for 2012.

“The School for Directors seeks to promote a new culture in Dominican schools and to create a new generation of committed directors with innovative and humane visions. We seek directors with a management approach that will match people with their talents and creative capacities in the schools under their direction while they make the educational community a collective space for growth and human development,” ….

The EDCE, created on September 2, 2011 through resolution number 0667-2011, signed by the Education Minister, will be held to the Salomé Ureña Superior Institute for Teacher Training (ISFODOSU).

The inaugural event was held on Tuesday the 17th in ISFODOSU´s Félix Evaristo Mejía Auditorium. The keynote speech was given by Minister Pimentel who said the School for Directors will contribute to improving school management while making it more efficient on all levels. It will also reinforce the training of school directors.

She said the new Center will offer school directors an opportunity to learn from experienced personnel and other colleagues. “The school is the fulfillment of a project that we have wanted to undertake out for a long time,” said the Minister of Education.

She added that the new entity seeks “to make this living experience an opportunity to encourage school directors to be better in their daily work, to be better leaders and to organize internal relations in their schools so that everyone – students, teaching staff and administration – will learn.”

She said that schools with good academic practices have leaders that inspire and provide a climate of trust, propose specific and challenging goals and make sure that everyone involved in the educational system contributes to meeting them.

Minister Pimentel stressed that for an educational leader, what is important is not the position one holds but rather their commitment and, above all, their vocation to service and their values as a human being.

“The School for Directors seeks to promote a new culture in Dominican schools and to create a new generation of committed directors with innovative and humane visions. We seek directors with a management approach that will match people with their talents and creative capacities in the schools under their direction while they make the educational community a collective space for growth and human development,” she said.

She added that the significance of the school director has been observed and analyzed in research carried out by various national and international experts over the past several decades.

The School for Directors proposes to define and carry out various strategic plans and strategies for the continual training of school directors and personnel, developing their skills in the areas of effective management and academic leadership.

Classes will require attendance with each module consisting of 16 class hours per month. Courses will be given by experts from Dominican universities such as the Technology Institute of Santo Domingo (INTEC) as well as international universities such as Harvard and Barcelona.

Initially, the course will begin with a group of 120 students, 30 in each of the four areas of ISFODOSU.  In April, a second group of 200 will begin and in September 300 more will take the course, with 600 directors joining in 2012.

Parallel to the directors training process, a school webpage will be set up for those interested in having access to information related to these training projects.

CEREMA

The Center for Multiple Learning Resources (CEREMA) will provide ISFODOSU students with a variety of sources of information and knowledge. It seeks to be a space which contributes to improving the quality of early teacher training and promotes an exchange of experiences, pedagogical renewal and independent learning.

The learning center has bibliographic materials, periodicals and magazines, an audiovisual room, computers with Internet access and computer and science laboratories.

The Ceremony

The words of welcome were given by Marcos Vega Gil, Vice Rector of ISFODOSU’s Félix Evaristo Mejía Auditorium. He was followed by Deputy Minister for Supervision, Evaluation and Quality Control of Education, Adarberto Martínez , who explained the school’s objectives and introduced the members of the work team.

Ana Dolores Guzmán de Camacho, Rector of ISFODOSU, explained the objectives and functions of CEREMA.

Following the formal cutting of the ribbon to officially inaugurate the Center for Multiple Learning Resources and School of Directors, the Minister of Education took a tour of the installations. She was accompanied by Education Ministry and ISFODOSU officials as well as special guests.

Minister of Education, Josefina Pimentel, presided over the event to mark the opening of the School of Directors. She is accompanied by Marcos Vega Gil, Vice Rector of the Félix Evaristo Mejía Auditorium; Minerva Vincent, Deputy Minister of Technical and Pedagogical Services; Adarberto Martínez, Director of Educational Evaluation and Supervision; Ana Dolores Guzmán de Camacho, Rector of ISFODOSU, and Victor Sánchez, Deputy Minister of Education, in charge of Planning and Development.