#530: Durban Education Comments on Wilentz/Simidor (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: Lance Durban <lpdurban@yahoo.com>

Recent discussion about quality of Haitian educators
sounds a lot like the current discussions going on in
the U.S. about teacher evaluations.... U.S educators
are generally opposed and inclined to blame low
salaires for any teaching quality is deficiencies.

Should be obvious to all that Haitian public education
has serious defects, but I would argue that a doubling
of teacher's salaries would have little immediate
effect.  Sounds like a typical U.N type response...
funnel in a "supplement de salaire" so the teacher's
will spend more time teaching rather than looking for
a second job with a more dependable salary.

Granted, public teacher's salaries should be paid, and
on a dependable monthly basis, but to improve
education I like the recommendation of someone (Guy
Antoine?) many months ago:  Devote ALL Haitian govt
higher education resources to teacher training.  For
precedence, one might look at the U.S. experience: 
Most states established teacher training colleges in
the late 1800's or early part of this century to
ensure that the public schools systems in their
jurisdictions had qualified educators.  SUNY (State
University of New York) today offers countless
curriculums, but until 1948 it was almost entirely
teacher training... with a few agricultural extension
colleges.

To improve teaching quality, the Haitian government
needs to look first at how the country goes about
training teachers... only then should it be thinking
about increasing teaching salaries.

L. Durban 




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