Today, Haiti remains
unstable and its educational system has been greatly impacted
by past violence. A nationwide assessment conducted in March
2004 showed that the political conflict in Haiti has had a severe
impact on Haiti’s children, particularly the most vulnerable.
During the period
surrounding Aristide’s resignation, students in eight
of 19 major cities received death threats aimed at preventing
them from attending school or participating in public events.
A number of schools and hospitals were the targets of violence
and looting, and many schools were closed for months.
Adding these political
and violent variables to an already struggling education system
makes it increasingly difficult for Haiti to provide a quality
education for all of its children. Still, it is a commitment
that the people of Haiti are not ready to relinquish.
Today, primary
school enrollment is also dropping due to economic factors.
60% of rural households suffer from chronic food insecurity,
and food must come before education.
With an adult illiteracy rate of
52% (48% of males are illiterate and 52.2% of females are illiterate),
education remains a key obstacle to economic and social advancement
in Haiti.
United Caribbean Trust is committed to assisting
with Haitian education and as such 1/3 of the Child
Sponsorship Programme is dedicated to education.
Haiti Faces Major
Education Challenge
Less than half
of all Haitians can read and write. Over half of the nation's
children fail to reach the fifth grade. And only one in five
young people reach secondary school
These figures reflect an educational
crisis found throughout the developing world, a situation that leaves
one billion people illiterate, with girls outnumbering boys two
to one among of those who receive no education at all. UNICEF is
spotlighting this crisis in specific regions in the wake of The
State of the World’s Children 1999, the agency’s wide-ranging
examination of challenges to the right of all children to basic
education.
"Haiti's educational system
has utterly failed for as many as half of that nation's children,"
Sheldon Shaeffer, chief of UNICEF's Education Section, said.
"It is a major violation of human rights to consign children,
by denying them education, to lives of poverty and disease."< Read more >
Our
vision is to raise up godly leaders in Haiti through health
and education to strengthen their families, communities and
country; bringing relief of poverty and stimulating the economy;
and to preach the Gospel so that lives will be saved and transformed
for the betterment of Haiti.
According to UNICEF figures, 58
per cent of Haiti's current educational facilities were not built
originally to serve as schools. Many classrooms are so overcrowded
that only one in four children has a place to sit. And almost two-thirds
of all children abandon primary school before completing the six-year
course.
In real terms, Mr. Shaeffer stated, more than one million primary
school-age children in Haiti simply have no access to education.
As a result, Haiti has an illiteracy rate of over 55 per cent, the
highest in the Americas. In addition, the vast majority of schools
lack trained teachers and less than half the children have access
to textbooks.
"It is not unusual," the education chief added, "to
find an unqualified first grade teacher who must deal with students
who are six to 16 years old in a class with more than 50 children
-- all clamoring for attention."
Mr. Shaeffer said UNICEF is working with the Haitian Ministry of
Education to improve existing schools and reach children who have
dropped out. But he said school reform in Haiti will require substantial
input from donor nations. A major thrust should be to strengthen
and empower free, public education through improvement of facilities,
provision of adequate materials and radically upgraded teacher training.
A phenomenon in Haiti, common throughout the developing world, is
that children are often forced into alternatives to school, such
as domestic servitude, child labor or life in the streets. It is
estimated that there are 300,000 Haitian children working as domestic
servants, approximately 80 per cent of whom are girls under 14 years
of age. Many of these children are maltreated.
Some 5,000 additional Haitian youngsters
are street children. These include some who have escaped from domestic
servitude and others who have come to the cities seeking opportunities
that did not materialize.
"Education is central to providing these children with ways
to improve their lives," Mr. Shaeffer noted. "Because
so few educational opportunities exist for them, UNICEF has developed
a highly flexible, informal approach to providing basic education
which attempts to respond to the needs of individual children. School
schedules are adjusted to children's availability and the curriculum
offers them the opportunity to acquire basic knowledge along with
personal and professional skills."
Girls should be given an equal place
in Haiti's educational future, Shaeffer asserted. That will mean
finding ways to deal with the economic realities, which force large
numbers of girls into domestic servitude. UNICEF is working to improve
the information base on girls' education, an effort that will help
develop strategies to increase girls' attendance at school and the
quality of girls' education. In addition, UNICEF has supported Haiti’s
Ministry of Education in the recent establishment of a Commission
on Girls’ Education.
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