Primary Schools
Primary education was
compulsory in the late 1980s, but scarce government funds and a limited number
of schools resulted in low enrollments in many rural areas. The school year
began in October and ended in July, with two-week vacations at Christmas and
Easter. Regular primary education consisted of six grades, preceded by two years
of kindergarten (enfantin), which was heavily attended and which counted
statistically in primary enrollments. Primary education consisted of
preparatory, elementary, and intermediate cycles, each of which lasted two
years. Promotion between grades depended on final examinations and on class
marks recorded in trimesters. At the end of the sixth year, students who had
passed their final examinations received a graduation certificate (certificat d'études
primaires). After receiving the certificate, students could take examinations
for entry into either secondary school or higher-primary school that led to an
elementary certificate (brevet élémentaire) after three years. It was
therefore possible for a student to take two years of kindergarten, six years of
primary school, and three years of higher-primary studies for a total of eleven
primary-school years. This primary education system, however, was expected to
change in the 1980s because of measures included in the 1978 Education Reform.
Primary-school enrollment was estimated at 642,000 in 1981, more than twice the official figure for 1970. According to the 1982 census, 40 percent of children in the six-year-old to eleven-year-old bracket were enrolled in school, compared with only 25 percent in 1971. Primary-school enrollment was 74 percent in metropolitan Port-au-Prince, but it was only 32 percent in rural areas. Most primary-school students were enrolled in private establishments in 1981, a reversal from the previous decade. An increase in the number of private primary schools accounted for the switch.
There
were more than 14,000 primary-school teachers in Haiti in the early 1980s;
however, only about 40 percent of the public primary-school
teachers and about 30 percent of those in private schools had a secondary-level
or teacher training certificate. In 1979
public school teachers were earning US$100 a month--the same salary paid to
teachers in 1905, when the profession was considered
prestigious. Private school salaries were about 50 percent lower than those of
public school teachers. The National Council
of Government (Counsel National de Government--CNG), reacting to demonstrations
by teachers, agreed to raise salaries
in 1986. Private school teachers' salaries, however, remained low. Because of
the low salaries, many teachers left the profession.
In
the 1970s, the Haitian government, with support from the World Bank and the
United Nations Educational, Scientific, an Cultural
Organization (UNESCO), began to reform its educational system, mostly at the
primary level. In 1978 the government