Following the 2008 OECD review of education policies in the Dominican Republic, the examining team was tasked to assess the condition of higher education in the Dominican Republic, to evaluate policies for higher education and research, and to identify future policy options to help meet the nation’s needs.

Against the background report prepared by the Dominican authorities and information supplied in meetings in the course of site visits, this OECD report provides an analysis of the higher education sector within the economic, social and political context of the Dominican Republic. It looks into access, quality and relevance, the effectiveness and governance of the system, its financing as well as its research and innovation capacity. The report concludes with a list of pragmatic recommendations for policy action.

Acronyms
Executive Summary
Chapter 1: Introduction
-Purpose and scope of the exercise
-Request from the Dominican Republic
-The review team
-Scope of the review
-Sources of information
-Definitions of tertiary education programmes
Chapter 2: Context
-Background
-Economy
-The social role of education
-Population
-Educational attainment of the adult population of the Dominican Republic
-Previous OECD advice regarding higher education in the Dominican Republic
-Responses and initiatives of the Government of the Dominican Republic
-National Development Strategy
-Ten-Year Plan for Higher Education 2008-2018
-The Strategic Plan for Science, Technology and Innovation 2008-2018
Chapter 3: Access to Higher Education
-Participation in higher education
-Provision of higher education
-Admissions criteria and selection processes
-Preparedness for higher education
-Student retention
-Summary
Chapter 4: Quality, Relevance and Effectiveness
-The Dominican labour market
-The informal economy
-Achieving more pro-poor growth: advice from the World Bank
-Changes in educational attainment
-Higher education graduates in the labour market
-Private returns to higher education
-Completion of higher education
-Graduation ratios
-Employer views of higher education
-The quality of higher education
-The programme of five-yearly evaluation of higher education institutions
-Planned initiatives to improve higher education quality
-Summary
Chapter 5: Future Demand for Higher Education
-The relative attractiveness of higher education
-Social norms and pressures
-The scale and shape of labour market requirements and opportunities
-Demographically-driven demand for higher education
-Higher education participation rate increases on top of population trends
-Summary
Chapter 6: The Structure of Higher Education Provision
-The need for diversity of provision
-Options for diversifying provision
-Internationalisation strategy
-Summary
Chapter 7: Sustainable Financing
-Resource mobilisation
-Resource allocation
-Resource utilisation
-Equity
-Summary
Chapter 8: Scientific Research, Technology and Innovation
-Legal framework
-The Strategic Plan for Science, Technology and Innovation
-The current stage of science, technology and innovation in the Dominican Republic
-Science production
-Human resources
-Applied research activities
-Industrial innovation
-Policy instruments
-Human resources: support for study abroad
-Assessment of requirements
-Summary
Chapter 9: System Steering and Institutional Governance
-Introduction
-System level steering in the Dominican Republic
-Institutional level governance
-Governance of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD)
-Other institutional governance models
-Role of the Ministry of the UASD
-Summary
Chapter 10: Conclusions and Recommendations
-Recommendation 1
-Recommendation 2
-Recommendation 3
-Recommendation 4
-Recommendation 5
-Recommendation 6
-Recommendation 7
-Recommendation 8
-Recommendation 9
-Recommendation 10
-Recommendation 11
-Recommendation 12
-Recommendation 13
-Recommendation 14
-Recommendation 15