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From owner-haiti@lists.webster.edu Thu Feb 13 08:01:03 2003
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 06:19:52 -0600 (CST)
From: Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>
To: Haiti mailing list <haiti@lists.webster.edu>
Subject: 14796: Karshan: Feb. 7, 2003 Issue Papers: Education and Adult Literacy (fwd)
Sender: owner-haiti@lists.webster.edu

From: MKarshan@aol.com

Education and Adult Literacy

Issue Papers, 7 February 2003

EDUCATION

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Historically the Haitian government placed little emphasis on primary education, and even less so for children in rural area, with the first rural school established 40 years after the country’s independence. Public schools were scare and requirements for schooling, such as shoes, textbooks, school supplies, transportation, uniforms, were out of reach for the majority of children. As a result, those children fortunate to access schooling usually only reached third grade.

Haiti’s 1987 Constitution provides for schooling for all children, a concept consist with the democratic movement that swept the country at that time. President Aristide set education as a priority and set out upon his inauguration in 1991 to create conditions for all children to go to school.

After President Aristide returned to Haiti, following the three year coup d’etat period, he immediately put in place a government program that would increase the number of schools, provide support services and materials for schooling, and provided 90,000 scholarships for primary school children, who unable to access a public school, relied on private schools in their regions. 200 primary and secondary schools were eventually built or renovated and the Ministry of Education standardized primary education.

With President Aristide’s return to the presidency in 2001, his platform of Universal Schooling was implemented by dedicating 20% of the national budget to education. Renovation and construction of schools continues with the aim of providing one school in each of Haiti’s 565 communal sections. Additionally, a study was conducted to better understand what obstacles prevented rural children from accessing schooling in four major rural areas. Findings from that study created recommendations which when implemented allowed an additional 160,000 children to enter school Fall 2001.

EFFORTS

LITERACY

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Illiteracy stood at an abysmal rate of 85% while the people’s movement for literacy (or alphabetization) training was repressed by the military under the Duvalier regime. Illiteracy, one of the major obstacles to full human development, continued to handicap the majority of Haitians. Haitians remained limited to manual labor, unable to participate in tasks that required reading and writing skills, and preventing the majority from understanding documents, reading newspapers, business contracts, or their children’s school work.

President Aristide created a Secretary of State for Literacy office after his return in 1994 laying the groundwork for a national campaign.

AIMS

The adult illiteracy rate currently stands between 55 to 60 percent. The government has set as one of its primary goals for Haiti’s 200th anniversary of independence in 2004 to significantly decrease the literacy rate. The linking of literacy with development motivates the population to participate in literacy centers, both in urban and rural settings. The success of this campaign will ultimately develop the nation as the poor, once they become literate, move into the business and social service sectors. Additionally, poverty reduction is achieved through literacy when, for example, parents can better participate in their child’s healthcare, farmers and merchants become better informed, and democracy strengthened when citizens are more fully informed.

EFFORTS