Santo Domingo.- Santos Badía addressed the topic when presenting the conference Advances and experiences of vocational training in the Dominican Republic, as part of the activities of the 46th Meeting of the ILO/Cinterfor Technical Commission, held in Punta Cana, until October 6.
He explained that INFOTEP has concentrated its efforts on expanding and remodeling its physical infrastructure, increasing coverage in training services and strengthening the productivity support service.
Since 2020, the institution has also been focused on updating and expanding the training offer and its teaching team, as well as strengthening admission, information and employment services. In addition, it has extended its training offer to the Dominican community residing abroad.
The fundamental axis of these last three years is the expansion and modernization of physical infrastructure, with the purpose of bringing development to where people live, reaching all corners of the country.
Until March 2021, INFOTEP had four regional management offices at the national level. Starting in April of that year, the operations of the Central Regional and Northern Regional managements were decentralized and two new ones were formed: Cibao Sur and Oriental.
During this management period, new training centers have been built, including technological, community centers and removable classrooms, as well as training units in seven penal correction centers. In the process of remodeling there are eight centers that will be inaugurated in the coming months
This stage of expansion of INFOTEP is carried out with the support of President Luis Abinader, who has expressed his conviction that the true social and economic development of the Dominican Republic is built with training and education.
As a result of the plan to expand and modernize new centers, coverage has increased significantly. Since August 2020, INFOTEP has offered 105,488 training actions for more than two million participants.
Between 2020 and 2023, 78 training programs were created and 589 were reviewed, while 3,468 teachers received training and updating.
And that is why Santos Badía affirms that this plan has been conceived in a comprehensive manner, “promoting the link between a sustained growth of our infrastructure with a greater number of training of technicians and technical teachers, a greater number of instructional hours provided and an increasingly updated staff of teachers.”
Productivity support
Through the Productivity Support Service, the institution served 9,570 companies, training 254,764 managers and middle managers and 699,567 workers, while 12,333 entrepreneurs have received training.
On the road to Innovation
Another fundamental strategic axis of this management has been innovation. Since it began, it has followed this path, with the purpose of betting on a modern and creative institution.
On its path towards innovation, INFOTEP seeks to promote an offer of innovative and quality services, aligned with the development needs of industry 4.0, to contribute to employability, entrepreneurship and increase the productivity of companies.
And for the director of INFOTEP “promoting innovation constitutes one of the strategic pillars that will guarantee the sustainability of the institution in the short, medium and long term.”
It is within the framework of this innovation process that the first innovation fair -INNOVATEP- was held from March 15 to 18 of this year, 2023, in which 36 innovation projects were exhibited. More than 50 thousand people, dozens of companies and national and international speakers attended.
Expands outside
In 2022, INFOTEP launched the Training Program for the Dominican Community Abroad, mainly in America and Europe. The launch in America took place on August 11 of that year, aimed at 12 countries and 16 cities in the United States.
The program for Europe was launched on October 22 of that year, in 14 countries and 42 cities.
To face COVID
To respond to the situation created by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Comprehensive Contingency Plan was developed. In this way, the continuity of the training actions was ensured.
In this context, measures were taken such as the migration of face-to-face programs to virtual modality; expansion and improvement of the INFOTEP Virtual platform; training of facilitators, technicians, workshop managers, advisors and supervisors, and the design of a methodological guidance manual.
For the general director of INFOTEP, Rafael Santos Badía, the growth obtained in this three-year period represents an unprecedented leap in the Dominican Republic.