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República Digital — National School Digital Inclusion Programme

Dominican Republic · Santo Domingo · See the Dominican Republic profile

República Digital, a 2016-2021 Dominican Republic programme distributing laptops, netbooks and tablets to teachers and students, was found by an independent Oxfam/FLACSO evaluation to have met only 23-43% of its device targets before being formally dissolved in 2021.

34436 laptops
Laptops delivered to teachers (as of June 2020)
38 % of goal
Laptop delivery vs 2017-2020 target (as of June 2020)
357659 netbooks
Netbooks delivered to secondary students (as of June 2020)
43 % of goal
Netbook delivery vs target (as of June 2020)
20396 tablets
Tablets delivered to primary students (as of June 2020)
72506 students
Primary students reached by tablets (as of June 2020)
218 schools
Schools reached (tablet programme) (as of June 2020)
18083 teachers
Teachers trained (as of June 2020)
23 % of goal
Teacher training vs target (as of June 2020)
23592 million RD$
Budget allocated (2017-2020) (2017-2020)
16341 million RD$
Budget executed (69% of allocated) (2017-2020)
República Digital — National School Digital Inclusion Programme

Details

Maturity
Discontinued
Promoter
Presidency of the Dominican Republic, Ministry of Education (MINERD) and INDOTEL
Period
2016-2021
Keywords
digital literacy, education technology, community technology centres, connectivity

Context

República Digital was a national digital-inclusion programme created by Presidential Decree 258-16 in September 2016 under President Danilo Medina, coordinated by a presidential commission alongside the Ministry of Education (MINERD), telecom regulator INDOTEL and state electricity transmission company ETED.

Objectives

Its flagship education strand aimed to distribute laptops to teachers and netbooks and tablets to students, alongside a network of community technology centres (Centros Tecnológicos Comunitarios, CTC).

Activities

Device distribution to teachers and students and rollout of CTCs run through the Presidency's Social Policy Cabinet, implemented 2016-2021.

Results

An independent evaluation by Oxfam Dominican Republic and FLACSO-RD found that as of June 2020 the programme had delivered 34,436 laptops to teachers (38% of its 2017-2020 goal), 357,659 netbooks to secondary students (43% of goal), and 20,396 tablets to 72,506 primary students in 218 schools (about 24% of its 2020 device goal), while training only 18,083 teachers (23% of its training target). Of the RD$23,592 million allocated for 2017-2020, RD$16,341 million (69%) had been executed.

Conclusions

In February 2021 Decree 71-21 formally dissolved the República Digital presidential commission and programme, replacing it with a new Gabinete de Transformación Digital. The record shows a genuinely evaluated, large-scale programme whose independent assessment documents substantial shortfalls against its own targets rather than success.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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