Haiti struggles to educate its children
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) -- In a cinder-block classroom
perched on a hilltop in Haiti's Carrefour-Feuilles district, teacher Jean
Jacques Pierre stood at a chalkboard, easing almost two dozen students
into the Caribbean nation's first day of school at the private College
Mixte Bethel.
"Where are we?" Pierre asked his students, who were between the ages of
6
and 10.
"Haiti," chimed the children, sporting their new uniforms, plaid shirts
and navy
blue trousers and skirts.
The students were among the few fortunate enough to be in school on opening
day last Monday as Haiti's faltering economy crimped parents' plans to
buy
education for their children.
Haiti's government opened schools as planned last week, despite calls from
parents and the teachers' union to delay the start of classes to allow
Haitians
more time to gather money and supplies for their children.
But most of the classrooms at Mixte Bethel were empty and teachers and
staff
stood idly by. Only about two dozen students showed up the first day at
a
school that can accommodate 250.
"Not all the students are able to come," said the Rev. Joseph Daniel Charles,
an
education adviser at the school and a teacher for 16 years. "The country
and the
situation is very difficult."
Between 10 percent and 20 percent of Haiti's schools have no monthly fees.
At
the rest, parents must pay up to $200 as an entry fee plus $10 to $60 a
month
to send their children to class -- difficult to manage in a country where
per
capita annual income is around $400.
Some schools also charge placement fees of up to $200, paid in June to
secure
a child's seat for the next school year.
In theory, admission to public schools is based on income with the poorest
in
first. But given the level of poverty and corruption in Haiti, admission
is often
based on connections.
Mired under dictatorship and military rule for decades, Haiti historically
has not
made education a priority.
Critics say Haiti's long line of strongmen believed they could best retain
power
by making sure people could not read or write. According to one account,
deposed dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier spent $3.70 per person annually on
education.
But during his first term in power in the early 1990s, President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, Haiti's first freely elected leader, created a deputy ministry
for literacy.
His successor, Rene Preval, built 158 schools, the government said.
Still, paying for education is no easy task in the Americas' poorest country,
where the average minimum wage is under $2 a day. Haiti's trade deficit
amounted to nearly $1 billion last year.
Both politics and economics take their toll on education.
Adult literacy is 45 percent, according to a CIA factbook. The U.S. State
Department says only 45 percent of children attend primary school. The
Haitian
government says just 15 percent enroll in secondary school.
Haitians hungry for education
At the same time teachers were giving their first lesson for the year,
parents and
children jammed the capital's bustling downtown to buy books, notebooks,
uniforms, and school materials on Jean-Jacques Dessalines Boulevard.
Street merchants peddled pens and notebooks outside the Maison Henri
Deschamps, a government distributor of supplies.
Francoise, a clothes retailer, waited almost four hours to buy school supplies
for her five children. She said the economic crisis has made it tough to
save
money for education.
"It's hard, but you have to prepare in advance," she said, standing in
line on a
sidewalk teeming with parents jockeying for position to enter the crowded
school supply store.
Just down the street at the Acra clothing outlet where uniforms and cloth
to
make them are sold, it was the same chaotic scene -- the store was packed
with
parents and kids.
"It's getting more and more difficult every year to pay for school," said
Marlene,
a nurse and mother of two.
Unemployed construction worker Jean Robert Jean-Jacques, a 33-year-old
father of five, was unable to send any of his four school-age children
to school
this year.
"I was working in a construction site and, for this, I found nothing to
put them
in school -- not even one," he said despondently outside his home, a concrete
hovel teetering precariously on a steep ravine in the Carrefour-Feuilles
slum. "I
don't feel well, because I would like them to go."
Aristide's government, however, is trying to help fathers like Jean-Jacques
get
their kids into school.
This year the state is providing 144,000 uniforms to students, paying for
some
school books, and transporting students to class, Haiti's education minister,
Georges Merisier, said before resigning on Tuesday, the day after schools
opened.
Taiwan donated $1 million to subsidize the programs.
Copyright 2001 Reuters