The Haitian Educational System yields the lowest total rate in the education realm of the Western Hemisphere.Haiti country profile. Library of Congress Federal Research Division (May 2006). This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. Haiti's literacy rate of about 61% (64.3% for males and 57.3% for females) is below the 90% average literacy rate for Latin American and Caribbean countries. The country faces shortages in educational supplies and qualified teachers. The rural population is less educated than the urban. The 2010 Haiti earthquake exacerbated the already constrained parameters on Haiti's educational system by destroying infrastructure and displacing 50–90% of the students, depending on locale.
International private schools (run by Canada, France, or the United States) and church-run schools educate 90% of students. Haiti has 15,200 primary schools, of which 90% are non-public and managed by communities, religious organizations or NGOs. The enrollment rate for primary school is 88%. Secondary schools enroll 20% of eligible-age children. Higher education is provided by universities and other public and private institutions.
The educational sector is under the responsibility of the Ministère de l'Éducation Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle (MENFP). The Ministry provides very little funds to support public education. As a result, the private sector has become a substitute for governmental public investment in education as opposed to an addition.Salmi, Jamil. 2000. "Equity and Quality in Private Education: the Haitian paradox." A Journal of Comparative Education 30:163–178. The Ministry is limited in its ability to improve the quality of education in Haiti.Luzincourt, K., & Gulbrandson, J. 2010. Education and Conflict in Haiti. Retrieved 30 October 2012.
Despite the deficiencies of the Haitian education sector, some Haitian leaders have attempted to make improving education a national goal. The country has attempted three major reform efforts, with a new one in progress as a response to the earthquake.
History
Pre-independence "Africans worked hard for the French plantation owners that half died within a few years; it was cheaper to import new slaves than to improve working conditions enough to increase survival. This attitude allowed no time or resources for the education of the enslaved. Children of slaveholders were tutored in the early grades at home and then sent to France for further study. There were few schools in Saint Domingue. At the time of independence, years of war had demolished most infrastructure including any educational facilities.
Independence through the 1800s
At the beginning of independence, King Christophe in the north of Haiti looked to Englishman William Wilberforce to build up the new nation's educational system. King Christophe, though illiterate, understood the necessity of education. He was keen to show that formerly enslaved educated persons could hold their own with the educated of the world. Wilburforce encouraged Prince Saunders of Boston as well as four others to join their efforts at developing a Lancastrian model of education. This is a Monitorial System where the teacher teaches the more advanced students who then in turn teach the less advanced. It is designed to educate a large number of students without benefit of a large number of professional teachers.
In the south of Haiti, President Alexandre Pétion turned to the French to guide his development of the educational system. He was personally familiar with it since he had studied ballistics in France. His approach to the issue of inadequate numbers of teachers for the primary grades was to focus on secondary education in the Napoleonic approach to education.
The first Constitution, promulgated in 1805 by King Christophe, stated that "... education shall be free. Primary education shall be compulsory... State education shall be free at every level." It guaranteed the right for everyone to teach –an "open-door policy" to private initiativesAl-Bataineh, Adel T and Mohamed A. Nur-Awaleh. 2005. International Education Systems And Contemporary Education Reforms. University Press of America. Lanham, Maryland. which meant that every person would have the right to form private establishments for the education and instruction of youth.Carlson et al. Haitian Diaspora and Education Reform. 2011. Columbia University. Haiti Government. 1801. Haiti Constitution of 1801. Retrieved 24 November 2012. The practice of providing accessible public education for all was established later when the Constitution was revised in 1807.
In 1987, the declaration that education was a right for every citizen was added to the Constitution.Haiti Government. 1987. Haiti Constitution 1987. Retrieved 24 November 2012. (These educational goals expressed in the Constitution have not been achieved. In the beginning, the government's primary focus was on building schools to serve the children of the political elite. These schools were predominantly found in urban areas, and patterned after the French and British school models. At the end of the 19th century, there were 350 public schools in the country. It rose to approximately 730 by the eve of the American Occupation of Haiti in 1917.)
The American Occupation of 1915–1934
At the beginning of the United States occupation of Haiti there was an effort by the U.S. military to improve the education but not to the degree to which they had in the previous countries that they had occupied such as Cuba or the Puerto Rico. Their initial assessment of the Haitian educational system was similar to many that had been made before. The solution of the military, as first understood – of broadening the type of education and opening it up to more of the population, was considered a positive change by many Haitians as well as a number of American editorial writers who were keeping an eye on Haiti. The most basic issue was that the current educational system did not successfully educate the average Haitian who spoke only Haitian Creole. The Haitian education system was built on the idea of the superiority of the French language over any other language, and the profound inferiority of Haitian culture to that of the French culture. This concept of superiority were born in the minds of the elite during the years of slavery and were re-enforced when the French Catholic Church was allowed to return and begin establishing schools as a result of the Concordat of 1860. The classical education, more commonly called an "academic" education was meant to prepare the elite for further education in France. There was heavy emphasis on the literature of France and rhetoric and very little science or practical education such as engineering and the learning tended to be rote. The language of instruction was French which was further re-enforced at home, among friends and in their reading materials down to food labels in their pantries. Non-elite students did not have the benefit of speaking French at home. In the schools that served the non-elite, French was still the language of instruction but there was a good chance the teacher was not fluent and the teaching became even more rote. Further down the social ladder, the quality of the teacher's either Creole or French was even less certain. To ensure universal education for all, it was clear that profound, deep, systemic changes would need to begin.
The Occupation's solution, however, was different than prior attempts at repair in that there was to be a new and extreme emphasis on agricultural education over the traditional academic education that the elites received. The decision process surrounding this move to agricultural education and its implementation caused a great deal of concern and controversy in Haiti as well as in the U.S. – particularly among black American leaders. To them it smacked of attempts in the southern United States to limit black citizens to simple agricultural training to keep them from moving up the social economic ladder and to keep them from moving into a profession or positions of leadership. (Note that there was an ongoing debate in the United States among leaders of black people at the time about the best educational path for black Americans – see the discussions between Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois [ whose father had been born in Haiti.] – however no black leader advocated for solely agricultural training.)
US. black leaders discovered that the U.S. decision makers in Haiti were all white military men – the majority of whom were southerners raised with Jim Crow laws. Concerns were raised about systemic racism such that one such leader Rayford W. Logan – an American French speaking advocate of Pan-Africanism – went on a fact finding mission, traveling much of the country and examining documents published by the Occupational forces. While there was no systematic record- keeping for all the Occupation years or for all the other efforts in the occupied countries, he was able to see clear patterns of denial of funds and minimization of Haitian culture. He concluded that the occupation's educational efforts were failing due to issues related to racism – some subtle and some blatant.
In the initial treaty with Haiti no mention was explicitly made of educational improvements or policy as had been done in the Philippines, Cuba and Puerto Rico. Rayford considered this "an almost inexplicable omission".
The Occupation budget for education in Haiti in 1920 paled in comparison to previous amounts allocated in other occupied countries. (Note that all monies for education came out of the Haitian treasury – there were no monies forthcoming from the United States.)
Haiti had $340,000. Cuba had 20 times the budget ($7,000,000) for the same number of people. Puerto Rico had 11 times the budget ($4,000,000) with half the people of Haiti. Dominican Republic had 5 times the budget ($1,500,000) with a third of the people.
While the U.S. was in the Dominican Republic, the salary of a teacher there had increased from $5 to $10 a month to $55 a month. Dominican rural schools had increased in number from 84 before the occupation to 489 in 1921. Logan attributed this disparity to racism, even though citizens of both countries were descended from African slaves. The Dominican Republic citizens described themselves as white people or mulatto while Haitians described themselves as black or mulatto.
In Haiti, the Occupation had essentially developed two school systems – one run by the U.S. – the agricultural sector called the Service Technique (or Technical Service) and the one run by the Haitian government – the academic from the elite lycee schools to the primary school in the mountain villages.
The implementation of the Service Techniques was highly problematic. The classes were taught by American teachers – few of whom spoke French let alone Haitian Creole. This required most classes to use translators which slowed down the teaching process considerably and added another cost.
Logan found that the salary differentials were such that Haitian primary school teachers were paid $72 a year while the American inspector of schools in that local area was paid between $1800 and $2400 a year. Academic schools were clearly deprived of funds while agricultural schools were generously funded. The Americans paid little attention to rural schools – home of the vast majority of Haitians.
After 13 years of Occupation there were only a third of the rural schools – 306 – as opposed to the 1074 required by the Haiti law of 1912. There was also a dearth of government owned school buildings – Haiti had much more of a deficit in numbers of school buildings than other countries the U.S. had occupied. In the Philippines, the Occupation had built 1000 schools; in Cuba, 2600 schools with attendance jumping from 21,000 to 215,000.