Vocational Education Training Centers in the Dominican Republic

“On the one hand it’s crazy because when you take a course at INFOTEP, if it’s not in Santo Domingo, you can’t get a job, just a diploma… but if you do it online you get a job,” said Berkis Mateo, a former INFOTEP student from San Cristóbal, in a phone interview with The Borgen Project in September 2025, reflecting the uneven opportunities that define vocational education training centers in the Dominican Republic.

The basic premise of vocational training is simple: by equipping people with skills that the labor market rewards, it reduces unemployment while higher skill levels raise wages. But in the Dominican Republic, the effectiveness of these programs is mixed.

Dominican women face persistent inequality. According to the World Bank, they earn just 60% to 80% of men’s wages and make up nearly half of all informal workers, where jobs are unstable and underpaid. The U.N. World Food Program reports that nearly 23% of Dominicans live in poverty, with 3.5% in extreme poverty, while youth unemployment hovers above 13%.

In 2009, youth unemployment reached 28.1% among young women compared to 16.6% overall. To respond, vocational education programs like Juventud y Empleo (PJyE) trained more than 72,500 at-risk youth between 2002 and 2013, 57% of them women. However, the results highlight the urgent need for reform.

The Role of INFOTEP
Founded in 1980, the Instituto Nacional de Formación Técnico Profesional (INFOTEP) has become the country’s leading authority on vocational training. It operates independently, with input from government, employers, and labor unions. By law, every formal company contributes 1% of its payroll to INFOTEP, creating a reliable financial base unmatched by most public institutions.

INFOTEP offers more than 150 career paths, ranging from automotive mechanics and IT to hospitality, health care, construction and refrigeration. General Director Rafael Santos Badía announced in August 2024 that more than 3.8 million Dominicans have graduated from its programs since its creation, including 1.77 million young people between 2020 and 2024 alone.

Limits of Digital Access
Leunam Trinidad, the Academic Director at the Dominican Institute of Art and Design (COS) of INFOTEP and a licensed operator of a virtual INFOTEP training center, explained to The Borgen Project in an interview on September 2025 how technology is helping expand access.

“From what we offer, digital marketing works best because of the content format,” he explains. “The office software package is the hardest…because many students don’t have computers and must use their phones, which makes it very difficult.”

Virtual vocational education training centers allow people to study from anywhere in the country. Yet, the digital divide undermines the promise of digital learning. The Internet Society gave the country an overall Internet resilience score of 40% in 2024, indicating a medium capacity to withstand unexpected faults.

Many poor households lack reliable Wi-Fi, and electricity insecurity remains widespread, particularly outside major cities. This means that while online courses technically expand access, the poorest Dominicans are often excluded again. In other words, whether in person or online, poverty itself limits the benefits of even free vocational training.

How INFOTEP Programs Help
Leunam noted that his operation trains around 5,000 people each year. Like all INFOTEP programs, courses require minimum class sizes, typically 35 participants. Free programs are often oversubscribed, and thousands of applicants are turned away annually.

Since courses are free courses, they are often oversubscribed, and thousands of applicants are turned away each year. The very communities most in need are often the least able to benefit.

Vocational training contributes beyond employment. Dominican Today reports that in Puerto Plata, INFOTEP recently graduated 44 new park rangers, strengthening conservation in a country facing deforestation, erosion, and tourism pressures. It also certified 173 brigadistas, volunteers who bolster disaster response in a nation vulnerable to hurricanes, floods and preventable emergencies.

Vocational education training centers in the Dominican Republic can also play a crucial role in narrowing inequality, including the gender gap. Programs like PJyE show that women gained higher expectations of life success, greater self-esteem and improved wage demands long after training.

Stories From the Ground
But the path is uneven. Mateo’s story underscores the gap between training and opportunity. “I did a two-month internship and did not get a job because the pay was so low it only covered my bus fare from San Cristóbal to Santo Domingo,” she told The Borgen Project in a phone interview. In effect, commuting costs erased the benefits of her training and kept her trapped in underemployment, a challenge that thousands face outside the capital.

The Road Ahead
Despite its accolades, INFOTEP reflects the contradictions of Dominican society. Most advanced programs are concentrated in the most urbanized provinces, Santo Domingo and Santiago. This leaves rural provinces—where poverty is the deadliest—without access.

Institutions like the Loyola Polytechnic Institute (IPL) in San Cristóbal demonstrate another path forward. Though smaller in scale, IPL offers high-quality programs in electronics, mechatronics, and industrial design, while embedding values-based training. It highlights how partnerships beyond INFOTEP can diversify opportunities and address gaps in access. The challenge lies in scaling this success, so that opportunity extends beyond the cities to the poorest provinces.

– Shannon Garrido

Shannon is based in the United Kingdom and focuses on Politics for The Borgen Project.