HAITI: Universities Feel Strain After Earthquake

• by Garry Pierre-Pierre* (port-au-prince)
• Monday, February 01, 2010
• Inter Press Service

Auguste, an undergraduate student in international affairs and management, was near the campus when she felt the earth shake beneath her. She bounced a few times and eventually regained her composure. A few miles away, many of her fellow students had died after most of the buildings collapsed.

'I can't believe it,' said a visibly shaken Auguste, days after the disaster. 'This is a nightmare. The year has been lost. I don't know what I am going to do now.'

For Auguste and thousands of university students across this city, attending college was a big part of their dreams for a better life. In less than 45 seconds, their world literally turned upside down.

As the Haitian government and international community scramble to shelter and feed the homeless and the injured, higher education appears to be on the sidelines for now.

Quiskeya and scores of universities and colleges in the capital were destroyed during the earthquake. But none was affected more than that school, which had recently undergone a two-million-dollar physical upgrade.

The State University of Haiti enrolls a mere fraction of high school graduates. The system at one time was considered among the best in the Caribbean. It graduated a coterie of doctors, lawyers, accountants and engineers.

But in recent years, amid political turmoil, the system has been lagging and private universities have mushroomed around the capital to serve students who can't gain admission into the public colleges and professional schools.

'Higher education is one of the best investments Haiti can make right now — there is no greater bang for the buck for developing a country. Haiti needs to rebuild its educated class, the anchor of every stable economy and society,' said Conor Bohan, who runs a programme that provides merit-based scholarships for disadvantaged high school graduates.

Until 1986, the state university, founded at the turn of the century, was the only university licensed to operate in Haiti, controlled by whatever dictator was in power.

However, scores of places that call themselves universities have sprung up in the last 20 years. The most reputable are members of the association of francophone universities (www.auf.org). There are eight members including the state university, the Catholic university (Notre Dame d'Haiti — UNDH) and Quisqueya, the largest private university.

The number of students enrolled in these universities is difficult to pinpoint. But only one percent of Haitians between the ages of 18-24 are enrolled. That rate is the lowest in the hemisphere.

The state university is the largest but the administration is weak. Eleven faculties function quasi-independently, making for a fractured institution.

With about 80 percent of university buildings destroyed, the government held a meeting last week to plan a reconstruction strategy. Some of the ideas thrown around are prefab housing that can be put up in less than a week.

The Haitian Education and Leadership Programme, or HELP, a local university scholarship programme, is trying to use this opportunity to create partnerships between accredited Haitian universities and universities abroad, according to Bohan, its executive director and founder.

'First we're looking for universities to accept students short-term while the local universities can rebuild, but also to establish long-term partnerships for technical support, professor and student exchanges, advanced degree possibilities for top Haitian graduates,' he said.

Universities that have thus far expressed an interest are Dillard University, a historically black U.S. college in New Orleans, Louisiana, whose students were displaced during Hurricane Katrina, Virginia Tech, Brown University & U. Polytechnique de Montreal.

According to various educators, Haiti's public schools educate only 10 percent of the school age population.

Universal, free, state-sponsored education is essential to Haiti's development. It is in the constitution but has been ignored by the government and donors alike.

'Eighty-five percent of Haitians with a university degree have emigrated, the result of Duvalierist anti-intellectual repression and 20 years of political instability,' Bohan said. 'In short — Haiti's educated class has left and is not being replaced.'

*Special to IPS from The Haitian Times.

© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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