Associated Press
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — After seven weeks with seven kids huddled under a shelter of tarps and bed sheets on the median strip of a busy road, Lissithe Delomme says the Haitian government can’t reopen schools fast enough.
“If they would open right now I’d be pretty happy,” she said, trying to ignore the tumult of two of her boys wrestling as she fried up a batch of plantains for sale. “They’re just sitting around doing nothing.”
The Jan. 12 quake dealt a devastating blow to Haiti’s already struggling schools: More than 80 percent in the earthquake zone were damaged or destroyed. All in Port-au-Prince and the other affected towns remain closed, and with tens of thousands of bored and restless children living in increasingly squalid encampments, patience is growing short.
On Monday, a group of private school directors delivered a petition to President Rene Preval decrying the lack of government action and demanding schools reopen immediately — be they in tents, temporary buildings or other makeshift facilities.
But some are urging caution before rushing back into a system that never really worked in the first place.
“This is an opportunity in a lifetime to radically change the educational system in Haiti,” said Marcelo Cabrol, head of the Inter-American Development Bank’s education division. “We want to be aggressive.”
The problems are monumental: Just one in 10 Haitian teachers is a qualified educator, according to the IADB — and a third have not even completed ninth grade. The government is unable to support more than a handful of schools, leaving the system dominated by fly-by-night, for-profit storefront schools whose onerous fees and other costs keep half of Haiti’s children from enrolling at any given time.
Buildings were so unsafe that one school collapsed on its own in 2008, killing 100 students and adults.
Wealthy Haitians and foreigners opt out entirely, putting their children in upscale schools that cost some $8,000 per year — more than most Haitians will spend on food and basic necessities in 20 years.
Nearly 4,000 students, and more than 700 teachers, principals and staff were killed during afternoon classes. All that’s left of the Ministry of Education’s main building is a crater filled with torn workbooks and lost teachers’ ID cards.
Education advocates see a chance for a fresh start.
Celebrities like Shakira, Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban have pledged money to rebuild individual schools and prominent U.S. educators are volunteering to help restructure the system.
Some aid groups are running school-like programs. Israeli and Haitian volunteers teach basic lessons like hygiene and counting in the sprawling makeshift camp behind the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne base in Petionville, but organizers say it is a temporary program.
