Haitian government calls children back to school
Jennifer Bakody, with additional reporting by Jill Van den Brule, UNICEF
© UNICEF/NYHQ2010-0200/Shehzad Noorani
Children file into a UNICEF tent school in the remote village of Jacquot Merlin, Haiti.
JACMEL, Haiti (April 5, 2010) — The noonday sun fills the vast gated property of Ecole Sainte Therese, lighting up dark classrooms that are empty save for rubble and dust. Outside, children in royal blue trousers, skirts and matching hair baubles sit row by row on green-painted benches facing two blackboards. A large makeshift tarp overhead provides shade.
Today, three months after the earthquake, the Haitian Ministry of Education backed by UNICEF and partners, has issued a nationwide call back to classes.
This is the first step in an operation that hopes to see more than 700,000 students back in places of learning over the next two months. These numbers are expected to increase towards the start of a new academic year in September. The government has also announced that the current school term will be extended until August, to provide children with more time to catch up on months of learning lost through the earthquake.
Double disaster, torn feelings
Thirteen year–old twin brothers Jean–Raymond and Jean–Rene Michel were bored and restless at home, wondering when they’d be able to return to school, and yet afraid to come back. Following the earthquake they spent their days outside in the streets and their nights in a tent with their family of eight. Jean–Raymond says he knows the earthquake is over and done with. Still, being inside a building makes him anxious.
“We came and we saw the tent, and I liked it immediately,” he says. “Our teachers have arranged it nicely for us. They’ve even arranged our benches the way they were before, inside in our classrooms.”
Jean–Rene says the whole family is happy they day for going back to school finally came, as their father, mother and grandmother were eager to see their sharp minds engaged. Sitting quietly beside him, brother Jean–Raymond adds, “Our parents had broken hearts for us.”
Building back better
© UNICEF/NYHQ2010-0206/Noorani
A teacher helps a girl during an arithmetic class in a UNICEF tent school.
The January 12 earthquake caused the death of an estimated 38,000 students, more than 1,300 teachers and other education personnel and left more than 4,000 schools and the Ministry of Education’s headquarters destroyed. All available data on education was lost. An estimated 3 million students are believed to have suffered an interruption to or complete cessation of their education.
Significantly, even before the disaster, only about half of Haitian children attended primary school. The vast majority attend privately–run establishments.
Now, together with its partners, UNICEF is supporting Haiti’s Ministry of Education with the development and roll–out of a comprehensive plan to ‘build back better.” UNICEF and its partners has worked with the Haitian government to provide 3,000 school tents to date, along with kits of student and teachers’ materials and recreational items, and school furniture to assist children whose schools were destroyed, or who have moved to re-settlement camps after losing their homes. Rapid orientation has been provided to teachers and volunteers to re-start education, with an interim curriculum covering basic life skills, psychosocial support and disaster preparedness.
“The demand for education is very high in Haiti. There is a clear thirst for learning amongst children and families,” said UNICEF Haiti Representative Francoise Gruloos–Ackermans. “Families value education far above any other service and we want to embrace this passion for learning.”
“While there is much to be done to restore confidence—from the safety and security of school buildings and learning spaces to the creation of a fully inclusive, regulated, free and effective education system—today marks a first step towards those goals and offers hope to children affected by this disaster.” UNICEF has also provided seven prefabricated offices for the Ministry of Education and is working with the Ministry and partners on a model for earthquake proof schools using innovative building technologies, including environmentally friendly compressed earth blocks.
Dreams for the future
Despite living a day–to–day existence, the future doesn’t seem so far away for brothers Jean–Raymond and Jean-Rene. “I want to be a MINUSTAH (UN peacekeeping) soldier, so I can keep my parents safe,” says Jean–Rene. Jean–Raymond adds, “I want to be a priest… to help all the people who are sick, and make them feel better.” For Haiti’s Director of Basic Learning, there are no two ways about it: not for these twin brothers or for any of Haiti’s young minds. Mohamed Fall, UNICEF’s Haiti’s Acting Chief of Education, signaled that education provides a lifeline in times of crises. “Returning to education is the key to restoring hope, but it is a long-term process that requires total commitment from all partners,” says Mr. Fall. “Education is the foundation upon which Haiti can rise again—a foundation that can stand in the face of an earthquake and also create the basis for a safe, secure future for Haiti’s children.”
