Ideice and Siuben Sign Five-Year Deal to Use Data for Better Education Policy

Two Dominican state agencies have signed an agreement to use social data to improve education for vulnerable families.

The Dominican Institute for the Evaluation and Research of Educational Quality (Ideice) and the Single Beneficiary System (Siuben) have signed a five-year agreement to generate evidence that will inform more effective education policies for vulnerable families.

The agreement sets out mechanisms to exchange demographic and socioeconomic information that will complement administrative records and databases in the education system. The goal is for public decisions to rest on rigorous data, with attention to equity and equal opportunity.

The pact was signed by Jesús Andújar Avilés, executive director of Ideice, and Augusto de los Santos, general director of Siuben. Andújar Avilés said Ideice will use the information exclusively for studies on educational quality and will share and agree on the results with Siuben, in line with intellectual property provisions and the regulations in force in the country.

De los Santos said social registries work as a "welfare radar," because they make it possible to identify household socioeconomic conditions and the barriers that hold families back. He said this will help the country understand the reality of teachers and students beyond the classroom.

The data exchange will follow the NORTIC A4 standard and run through the State's X-ROAD interoperability platform, managed by the Government Office of Information and Communication Technologies (OGTIC).