perched on a hilltop in Haiti's Carrefour-Feuilles district, teacher Jea Jacques Pierre stood at a chalkboard, easing almost two dozen students into the Caribbean nation's first day of school at the private College Mixte Bethel.
"Where are we?" Pierre asked his students, who were between the ages of 6 and 10.
"Haiti," chimed the children, sporting their new uniforms, plaid shirts and navy blue trousers and skirts.
The students were among the few fortunate enough to be in school on opening day last Monday as Haiti's faltering economy crimped parents' plans to buy education for their children.
Haiti's government opened schools as planned last week, despite calls from parents and the teachers' union to delay the start of classes to allow Haitians more time to gather money and supplies for their children.
But most of the classrooms at Mixte Bethel were empty and teachers and staff stood idly by. Only about two dozen students showed up the first day at a school that can accommodate 250.
"Not all the students are able to come," said the Rev. Joseph Daniel Charles, an education adviser at the school and a teacher for 16 years. "The country and the situation is very difficult."
Between 10 percent and 20 percent of Haiti's schools have no monthly fees. At the rest, parents must pay up to $200 as an entry fee plus $10 to $60 a month to send their children to class -- difficult to manage in a country where per capita annual income is around $400.
Some schools also charge placement fees of up to $200,
paid in June to secure a child's seat for the next school
year. In theory, admission to public schools is based on
income with the poorest in
first. But given the level of poverty and corruption in
Haiti, admission is often based on connect.
Mired under dictatorship and military rule for
decades, Haiti historically has not made education a
priority.
Critics say Haiti's long line of strongmen believed they could best retain power by making sure people could not read or write. According to one account, deposed dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier spent $3.70 per person annually on education.
But during his first term in power in the early 1990s, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti's first freely elected leader, created a deputy ministry for literacy. His successor, Rene Preval, built 158 schools, the government said.
Still, paying for education is no easy task in the
Americas' poorest country, where
the average minimum wage is under $2 a day. Haiti's trade
deficit amounted to nearly $1 billion last year. Both
politics and economics take their toll on education.
Adult literacy is 45 percent, according to a CIA
factbook. The U.S. State
Department says only 45 percent of children attend primary
school. The Haitian government says just 15 percent enroll
in secondary school.
Haitians hungry for education
At the same time teachers were giving their first lesson for the year, parents and children jammed the capital's bustling downtown to buy books, notebooks, uniforms, and school materials on Jean-Jacques Dessalines Boulevard.
Street merchants peddled pens and notebooks outside the Maison Henri Deschamps, a government distributor of supplies. Francoise, a clothes retailer, waited almost four hours to buy school supplies for her five children. She said the economic crisis has made it tough to save money for education.
"It's hard, but you have to prepare in advance," she said, standing in line on a sidewalk teeming with parents jockeying for position to enter the crowded school supply store. Just down the street at the Acra clothing outlet where uniforms and cloth to make them are sold, it was the same chaotic scene -- the store was packed with parents and kids.
"It's getting more and more difficult every year to pay for school," said Marlene, a nurse and mother of two. Unemployed construction worker Jean Robert Jean-Jacques, a 33-year-old father of five, was unable to send any of his four school-age children to school this year.
"I was working in a construction site and, for this, I found nothing to put them in school -- not even one," he said despondently outside his home, a concrete hovel teetering precariously on a steep ravine in the Carrefour-Feuilles slum. "I don't feel well, because I would like them to go."
Aristide's government, however, is
trying to help fathers like Jean-Jacques get their kids into school. This year the state is providing
144,000 uniforms to students, paying for some school books, and transporting students
to class, Haiti's education minister, Georges Merisier, said before resigning
on Tuesday, the day after schools
opened.
Taiwan donated $1 million to subsidize the programs.
Copyright 2001 Reuters