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From: JHUDICOURTB@aol.com
Lyall wrote:
I do know that a secondary school was built in St Marc under the Aristide
government. It was probably started under the interim Preval government,
actually. When it was finished there was a big TV spread about it. As far as
I
know it never opened. I DO know that the other public schools (well, at
least
one; where elifet went to school) stopped paying teachers altogether and
shut
down after they stopped coming to work for nothing. They did keep working
for
many months without pay. That happens all over the place.
It is true that there were many School construction projects from the first
Preval administration into the second Aristide administration. There was even
a government institution whose only role was that ; it was called CECI. The
problem is that buildings don't make schools. Teachers and children make
schools. There has not been any movement to train teachers, or increase
their salaries. In many communities, parents put money together to pay poorly
qualified part-time staff. In real terms the salaries of public school
teachers
in Haiti has been going down, and are comparable to (or in many cases less
than) the salaries of factory workers and household help. They would need to
go up to at least what the police make, closer to five thousand to eight
thousand gourdes/month to be living wages for some parts of Haiti (not PAP).
Also many of the construction were not closely supervised. So some of those
buildings are not very good (leaky roofs etc) , and lack latrines, running
water, proper lighting (I don't mean electric light, I mean ways for sunlight
to
penetrate classrooms). Also, while the ministry of education has had a plan
for "L'ecole fondamentale" to go to 10 years, the buildings often have six
rooms, grades 1 to 6.
Government construction contracts are traditionally one of the best get rich
schemes in Haiti. Should we think that these "more than 100 schools" are
any different?