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Haiti EDUCATION
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Classroom, University of Haiti, Faculty of Medicine
and Pharmacy, Port-au-Prince
Courtesy Inter-American Development Bank
Partially completed addition to an elementary school
Courtesy Inter-American Development Bank
Haiti's postcolonial leaders promoted education, at
least in
principle. The 1805 constitution called for free and
compulsory
primary education. The early rulers, Henri (Henry)
Christophe
(1807-20) and Alexandre Pétion (1806-18), constructed
schools; by
1820 there were nineteen primary schools and three
secondary
lycées. The Education Act of 1848 created rural primary
schools
with a more limited curriculum and established colleges of
medicine and law. A comprehensive system was never
developed,
however, and the emerging elite who could afford the cost
preferred to send their children to school in France. The
signing
of the Concordat with the Vatican in 1860 resulted in the
arrival
of clerical teachers, further emphasizing the influence of
the
Roman Catholic Church among the educated class. Roman
Catholic
schools essentially became nonsecular public schools,
jointly
funded by the Haitian government and the Vatican. The new
teachers, mainly French clergy, promoted an attachment to
France
in their classrooms.
Clerical teachers concentrated on developing the urban
elite,
especially in the excellent new secondary schools. To
their
students, they emphasized the greatness of France, while
they
expounded on Haiti's backwardness and its lack of capacity
for
self-rule. Throughout the nineteenth century, only a few
priests
ventured to the rural areas to educate peasants. In both
urban
and rural settings, they followed a classical curriculum,
which
emphasized literature and rote learning. This curriculum
remained
unaltered until the 1980s, except during the United States
occupation, when efforts were made to establish vocational
schools. The elite resisted these efforts, and the
government
restored the old system in 1934.
Education in Haiti changed during the 1970s and the
1980s.
Primary enrollments increased greatly, especially in urban
areas.
The Jean-Claude Duvalier regime initiated administrative
and
curriculum reforms. Nevertheless, as of 1982 about 65
percent of
the population over ten years of age had received no
education
and only 8 percent was educated beyond the primary level.
Data as of December 1989
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