As the poorest country in the western hemisphere and plagued by years of social and political unrest, Haiti’s education for its children has suffered terribly.
Fortunately, the country’s joint efforts with the international community have brought increasing attention and support from the outside world and the education for children is improving.
TROUBLES INTERTWINE
Since the 1950s, the Caribbean island country has witnessed social unrest and consequent economic meltdown.
To cope with the shortage of fuel, the Haitians burned almost their entire forest area, with its coverage plummeting from 60 percent in 1923 to merely 2 percent in 2006. Four consecutive hurricanes last summer aggravated the suffering of the Haitians, and the deteriorating environment further stirred instability in the fragile country.
According to a UNESCO report released in September, four fifths of Haitians live on no more than two dollars a day, and more than half of them live on less than one dollar.
Entangled in all these troubles, education has had no chance to play its proper role. Currently, only 56 percent of Haitian kids attend pre-school education, and the proportion of elementary school and junior middle school enrolments are only 49 percent and20 percent, respectively.
Meanwhile, multiple reasons leave those enrolled still uncertain of their opportunities. For many of them, the right to go to school is dependent on their households’ income. Statistics show that only 30 percent of all the first graders in elementary schools are lucky enough to graduate, and for junior middle school it is only 2 percent.
ABSENCE OF GOVERNMENT ROLE
For years, the Haitian government’s investment in education accounted for only 2 percent of its GDP. To keep operating, public schools had to raise tuition fees, and the sum of some 70 dollars a year has turned out to be an unconquerable obstacle for many children of poor families.
Poor financial support also forced schools to add expedient but dangerous classrooms, sometimes resulting in tragedies. A church school called Le Promesse collapsed last November, burying more than 700 students and teachers and killing more than 100.
Shortly after the 2006 presidential elections, Haitian President Rene Preval called for technical and financial assistance from the World Bank for projects in the education sector. In April 2007, the World Bank ratified a 25 million U.S. dollar grant from the International Development Association to fund Haiti’s Education for All strategy.
INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT
To help the disaster-torn country find hope for its future generations, many international groups and donors have offered assistance.
Besides the 25-million-dollar grant, the World Bank, together with the International Monetary Fund and others, granted Haiti 1.2billion dollars worth of debt relief in June.
UNESCO approved the starting tranche of 22 million dollars in September for the Education for All program, which will enable the enrolment of 600,000 school children from underprivileged families.
NGOs also made their contributions. Haiti Education Foundation launched an international child-sponsorship campaign in which 55 dollars supports one child to study for a year and 36 dollars supplies him or her with clothes and milk. Hope for Haiti, another charity group, managed to build several small-scale schools in remote mountainous regions in the aftermath the 2008 hurricanes to help children in rural areas return to schools as soon as possible.
These organizations also handed out food at schools to attract class attendance. Thanks to the school feeding programs, a jump of50 percent was witnessed in enrolment in September 2008 compared with the end of the previous semester. For many of these children, the food they received at school was the only meal of the day.
WITS AND COURAGE
The development of education depends on a stable political situation and a growing economy.
After being named as UN Special Envoy to Haiti in May, former U.S. President Bill Clinton has been actively gathering help from around the world for Haiti’s economic development. On Oct. 1, during his third trip to Haiti this year, Clinton assured about 200 businessmen at a conference that “the political risk in Haiti is lower.” He hoped the entrepreneurs would invest in the island country to do “something great.”
Also in a September report, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon recognized that progress had been recorded on the security and stability fronts, and the senatorial elections in June and the adoption of some crucial legal documents would facilitate political dialog.
It is generally expected that, with continuing stability and peace, Haitian children will also benefit from education and in turn benefit their country with the education received, as their peers do elsewhere in the world.
(Source: xinhuanet.com)