An educational revival in Haiti: from the ground up

Rafael Parente *

Even before the Haitian earthquake, the education system was in serious trouble. The challenges were legion: roughly half of all children were out of school; non-public schools accounted for 80 per cent of attendees; private school fees charged premiums above what the average Haitian citizen could afford; there was a serious lack of qualified teachers and books; there was a school deficit, especially in rural areas; and the universities suffered serious institutional and physical infrastructural problems. Roughly half the population was illiterate.

The natural disaster exacerbated an already miserable situation. With approximately half the population under the age of 18, the future of young survivors, already precarious, got worse. Schools and universities were destroyed and a good number of professors, administrators and directors of various institutions were killed along with the fathers, mothers and families of thousands of children.

A number of large international agencies are in the process of designing reconstruction plans for the country. Across the spectrum most policy makers and practitioners concede that education is fundamental to future development of Haiti. Notwithstanding their lofty rhetoric, the Haitian population themselves decided not to wait for official aid and began to do what needed to be done. Self-help community groups began organizing and adapting to a reality even more cruel than their previous one.

Although commendable, the support and plans being advanced by the international community should be tempered to the reality on the ground. The zealous response of those who would do good should take account of the interests of Haitians themselves. At the same time, there are opportunities for the exchange of educational solutions between Brazil and Haiti due to their strong social and cultural affinities. There are fascinating possibilities to adapt lessons from Brazil to Haiti. 

Over the past decades, a great number of the more successful and innovative Brazilian experiments in education emerged from NGOs, community organisations and other non-profit local groups. The Uerê Project, for example, works with youth and children who suffered traumas caused by a daily co-existence with violence leaving them facing cognitive disruption and learning difficulties, such as dyslexia.

The project emerged from the experience of Yvonne Bezerra de Mello with street children. After the slaughter of Candelaria, in 1993, Yvonne started daily support for some 120 children survivors. She also began to research the causes of psychological trauma, including neurological damages. On the basis of this initial experience, she elaborated a new methodology that included ‘deblocking’ exercises, self-esteem projects and dream stimulation processes to support the reintegration of children and youth into their communities.

Today Yvonne applies her methodology in a school of the Complex of Maré, one of the largest group of favelas of Rio de Janeiro. She also works with the ‘Schools of Tomorrow’, a programme that integrates a collection of municipal schools in high-risk areas of the city. This programme also includes other initiatives that might be usefully adapted to support the wider educational system in Haiti.

The Neighbourhood-Educator, launched by the NGO Aprendiz, also trains residents in specific communities that the neighbourhood is a zone for educating children. Education – whether formal or informal – should not be confined to new schools alone. It can take place in parks, gardens, churches, homes and whatever spaces are minimally appropriate for social gatherings.

What is more, members of the community – including musicians, cooks, mechanics and story tellers can all play a role. In some cases they can work just a few hours for day and be remunerated as appropriate. In Brazil, these educators were provided with employment for 4 hours a day and earned the equivalent USD40-200 a month.

The NGO Redes de Maré oversees analogous interventions. They seek to unite and organize community talents to reinforce existing education systems. Their focus is on cultural activities – sometimes combining mathematics instruction with theatre and music. The basic philosophy is the harnessing of local human and physical resources already available to positive effect. It is precisely this kind of philosophy which might have application in post-quake Haiti.

There are also examples of innovative Brazilian public programmes designed to extend education that could be adapted to the Haitian context. The Bolsa Familia is a widely recognized programme that introduces conditional cash transfers to support poor families that ensure children and youth are properly vaccinated and in schools. At a minimum, the provision of cash transfers to women effectively subsidizes formal education and the feeding of children.
 
Likewise, the University Programme for Everyone (ProUni) also provides scholarships for full and part-time students in Brazil. It provides subsidies for public, private and university education. Specially adjusted versions could be created in Brazil and indeed across the Americas – with Haitians taking part and ultimately returning to Haiti to contribute to further reconstruction.

Finally, there are also new innovations in the philosophy of education that may have application in Haiti. For example, the Brazilian Professor Antonio Carlos Comes da Costa has adapted ideas from Jacques Delors (UNESCO) and his four pillars of education.

The fourfold pillars of ‘learning awareness’, ‘acting’, ‘living together’ and ‘being’ are gradually being converted into a Brazilian reality through what is described as ‘inter-dimensional education’. Through this new pedagogical philosophy, Professor Comes da Costa is translating these four pillars into basic competencies. Specifically, he is developing conceptual modules for values-education, self-respect, ‘auto-didatics’ and others.

These are just some of the many practical solutions from Brazil that could be positively adapted to the Haitian context. It is essential that any educational transformation is prioritised according to needs on the ground. And notwithstanding the impulse to invest in recruiting and training formal teachers and bricks and mortar, international agencies and Haitian authorities would do well to consider latent capacities and new forms of education. Many answers to Haiti’s educational revival may be right before their eyes.

*Rafael Parente is an educator and researcher. He is currently a sub-secretary for strategic projects of the Municipal Secretary of the Education in Rio de Janeiro. He has a Masters in Education Management from PACE and is in the final stages of a PhD in International Education from New York University. He is especially interested in educational systems across Latin America, particularly those using information and communication technologies and forming public-private partnerships.

References

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