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Good practice Imported

UNICEF & MINERD — AI-Powered Accessible Digital Textbooks Pilot for Students with Disabilities in the Dominican Republic

Dominican Republic · Santo Domingo · See the Dominican Republic profile · See the Santo Domingo profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 19% 67/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Since December 2022 the Dominican Republic's MINERD and UNICEF have built AI-converted Accessible Digital Textbooks — audio narration, sign language, image description — piloted in nine schools by 2024, with a national plan to reach 100 centres and 50,000 children by 2027.

260+
Accessible digital materials published (Dec 2022)
9
Educational centres covered (by 2024)
100 centres / ~50,000 children
National scale-up target (centres / children) (2024–2027)

Details

Maturity
Pilot
Promoter
UNICEF Dominican Republic & Ministerio de Educación (MINERD)
Period
2022–2027
Keywords
education, disability inclusion, accessibility technology, AI/NLP

Context

Since December 2022, the Dominican Republic's Ministry of Education (MINERD) and UNICEF have built AI-converted Accessible Digital Textbooks (ADT) — audio narration, sign-language video and image description — as part of a toolset co-developed with OpenAI, initially producing over 260 accessible materials focused on intellectual disability and autism spectrum support.

Activities

A Technical Committee of teachers, National Resources Center staff and technicians was certified in accessible digital-book production by UNICEF's Latin America and Caribbean regional office in March 2023. By 2024 the initiative covered nine educational centres, and in May 2024 UNICEF and MINERD ran a classroom pilot of two accessible digital stories for first- and second-grade students in six schools in Santo Domingo and Santiago de los Caballeros.

Results

A 2025 UNICEF Innocenti evaluation of the pilot found teachers used the materials confidently, offering spontaneous individual support, though connectivity gaps and missing offline functionality limited reliable use.

Conclusions

MINERD has published a national scale-up target — reconverting 100 educational centres between 2024 and 2027 to benefit roughly 50,000 children with and without disabilities — which remains a stated plan rather than a completed, independently verified rollout.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
MINERD Technical Committee (teachers, National Resources Center production staff, technicians), UNICEF Latin America & Caribbean regional office trainers

Conditions for success

  • Certified training in accessible digital-book production
  • Reliable school connectivity and offline functionality
  • Sustained MINERD-UNICEF partnership and national budget commitment through 2027

Common failure modes

  • Connectivity gaps and missing offline functionality limited reliable classroom use in the 2024 pilot
  • The 2027 scale-up target is a published plan, not yet a verified completed rollout

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes Philanthropic / foundation funding

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

Replication kit

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Data sources

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