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Haiti Creole, Literacy, and Education
Conflicting political interests have caused Haiti's
national
language policy to be inconsistent. Even governments that
claimed
to represent the masses hesitated to give Creole and
French equal
legal status. It was only in the late 1970s that the
government
approved the use of Creole in education. In the early
1980s,
there was still some doubt about whether Creole would used
in
primary education.
For almost fifty years, Haitian linguists had debated
the
spelling rules for Creole. But in the late 1970s, the
National
Pedagogic Institute (Institut Pédagogique Nacional--IPN)
developed an orthography that included elements of the two
systems previously in use. The government gave
semiofficial
status to the new orthography as part of the education
reform of
1978.
The most controversial aspect of the education reform
was the
introduction of Creole as the medium of instruction in
primary
schools. In many rural and urban schools, textbooks were
in
French, but classroom discussion of these books was in
Creole.
Nevertheless, French remained the official language of
instruction, and a major goal of most students was to
master
written and spoken French.
The education reform program was intended to boost
students'
performance through instruction in their native language,
but
several groups opposed the use of Creole as the language
of
instruction. Bilingual families believed that the use of
Creole
in the schools was eroding their linguistic advantage in
society,
by reducing the importance of French. In general, the
upper class
believed that by offering instruction in Creole, the
schools
would increase poor people's access to education; however,
many
poor people also opposed the reform. The poor tended to
view
education more as a means of escaping poverty than as a
means for
learning, so many parents were most concerned about having
their
children learn French. Private schools often ignored the
curriculum changes called for under the reform. Under
pressure
from the public, the government declared that students
would
begin using French when they entered the fifth grade.
Students
entering fifth grade found themselves unprepared for
classroom
use of French, however, because their textbooks in earlier
grades
had been entirely in Creole. The problem remained
unresolved in
the late 1980s.
In the 1960s, the government had established adult
literacy
programs in Creole, and the Roman Catholic Church had
sponsored
similar nationwide programs in the mid-1980s. According to
Haiti's 1982 census, 37 percent of the population over ten
years
of age was literate; in rural areas, only 28 percent was
literate. In rural areas, the literacy rate for women was
almost
as high as it was for men. The census failed to note,
however,
the degree of literacy, or the language in which people
were
literate.
Monolingual speakers had little access to literature in
Creole
(see The Mass Media
, ch. 9). The major Creole
publication,
the monthly Bon Nouvel, published by a Roman
Catholic
group, had a circulation of 20,000 in 1980. A Protestant
group
published the New Testament in Creole in 1972. Numerous
booklets
about hygiene and agricultural practices appeared in
increasing
quantities in the 1970s and the 1980s. Nevertheless,
Creole
literature continued to be scarce in the late 1980s. In
particular, information in Creole about politics and
current
events was in short supply. By the late 1980s, monolingual
speakers regularly used Creole in letters and personal
notes.
Community leaders and development workers also used the
language
in recording the minutes of their meetings and in project
reports.
Data as of December 1989
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