Education

The Haiti Education Ministry held a planning meeting on the Education Act recently. In attendance were the Board of Directors of the National Association of Borlettes Keepers (NABT); Prime Minister Lamothe; Presidential Representative Doré; and Minister of National Education and Vocation Training (NEVT) Pierre.

The meeting was called to talk about the government of Haiti's (GOH) plan for Universal Schooling Program Free and Mandatory (USPFM). The GOH wants the NABT to become familiar with long-range goals of the Education Act, and create a Memorandum of Understanding with the GOH.

The NABT and the National Fund for Education (NFE) are stakeholders for this initiative. They are waiting for Parliament to approve NFE funds to start building schools that will offer free public education. The NABT has been a cooperative body, eager to comply with requirements necessary to help offer free public-education access.

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It is a reality, the newest university in Haiti, University of King Henri Christophe in Limonade, will start receiving this fall or in September to be precise. According to the Mr. Jean-Marie Théodat who is the Interim Chair of the Limonade Campus, the university will start with a total of 1,500 students who will not be staying on Campus.

Students enrolled at the University do have time to select a field of study that is of interest to them. According to Mr. Jean-Marie Théodat, no specific degree programs have been designed yet for students entering this fall. New students will begin with general education and on the second year, they will have available specific disciplines to specialize in.

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Haiti is a desperately poor country, the poorest in the Western Hemisphere in fact. Up to 80% of the population is illiterate. So it is interesting to consider the program the National Directorate of Books, National Library, and Libraries without Borders (BSF) is attempting to do to combat the problem.

On July 12, 2012, the tripartite began the Biblio Tap-Tap Program, a mobile library, which will deploy three jitney buses to several areas in the country. The stop-off points include the region around Port-au-Prince and north and central sectors of Haiti. Jitneys will visit each destination point monthly, with a library of 400 titles for each locale, out of its inventory of 2,400 books. The program is designed to serve the unemployed, youth that have dropped out of school, and the homeless. The literacy program will meet the education needs of approximately 5,000 youth and adults.

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Cap-Haitien-born Anténor Firmin was one of the earliest scholars to write on the subject of negritude. Conceivably the first anthropologist of color, he introduced the notion of human anthropology as allied with the study of racial characteristics.

During the late 1800s, a strain of thinking pervaded U.S. and European intellectual circles, arguing the African race as low on the evolutionary scale in comparison to Caucasians. The French were dominating the conversation of the African race as intellectually inferior, due to misguided assumptions of racial differences. A prominent French author, Count Arthur de Gobineau, published "Essay on the Inequality of Human Races" that posited supremacy of the Aryan people over Africans and other dark-skinned races.

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As the third largest beer brewing company in the world, Heineken was established in 1864 in Amsterdam by Gerard Adrian Heineken, and has grown into a multi-billion company over the years.

The company is now planning to help Haiti by build hospitals and schools to the people there. This will speed up reconstruction together with other companies helping in other fields. It will help establish schools and hospitals in Haiti but will not brand them the name Heineken. This will help the nation a great deal as it is trying to reconstruct from the earthquake effects.

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This is a report of the entire event that took place on January 10, 2012 in Limonade. President Michel Joseph Matelly and Dominican President Leonel Fernández were present at the Inauguration of the first University Campus Roi Henry Christophe in Limonade.

The campus offered by the Government of the Dominican Republic and business sectors of the Dominican Republic is estimated at a cost of $50 million dollars.

President Leonel Fernández who addressed the public in French said: "We are conscious today more than yesterday, in terms of higher education as in all areas of community life, that the status quo for us, is suicidal. This university must be a platform, which will allow to repatriate a lot of our brains, our scientists left of our inclement skies so that their value is recognized"

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The inauguration of the Henry Christophe University complex is symbolic and a big boost to the education sector in Haiti, but this has unsettled the public sector. The question in everyone's mind ever since the university complex was planned still rings true on the eve of the inauguration- should the university be autonomous or not?

There are two competing schools of thought right now in Haiti.

The first believes that Henry Christophe University should be part of the state's educational system. The other group is mainly made of concerned citizens from the northern part of the country. Their group believes that the university should be autonomous, and thus should come with its own set of board of regents and own budget.

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For Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier named godfather "parain" for the promotion Robert Blanc at the Law school and Economic sciences in Gonaives. This was done for the 2011graduating class.

This is something that will make me take a moment to think about" Jean Claude Duvalier, a former Dictator, someone who was heading a government where the law was not used or respected, is being named the godfather of a graduating class of future layers.

I believe the former Haitian dictator, Jean-Claude Duvalier is Haitian like all Haitians. by that, I mean he has the right to live in his country. I also believe that we need to start working on reconciliation, something that President Michel Martelly has been working on. I only have one problem: Using Jean Claude Duvalier as a figure in anything that has to do with law.

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The poignant song by Koralen Jean-Claude Martino, arguably most famously sung by Manno Charlemagne, speaks to the melancholy horrors of Haitians' second instance of being sold into slavery, by the United States during their first occupation of the country, between 1914 and 1934.

Strung together by notes of a minor influence, with lyrics that invoke the despondency of those experiencing life as the Vyewo, sold to work on sugar plantations in neighboring countries, the mainly somber melody is interspersed with contrastingly allegro moments, creating an empathetic understanding, even in those who do not understand the language sung.

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The Latin pop star Shakira visits Haiti after the 2010 earthquake to meet earthquake survivors and work on her plan which is to build a school in Haiti for children. Shakira's school will be similar to the one established by her Barefoot foundation in Colombia. She said: " Providing education to Haitian children would be a key part of the reconstruction of the quake-shattered country, which even before the disaster was already the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere."

Beside this current plan to open a school in Haiti, Shakira is already involved with several international actors to raise funds for the victims of the Haiti earthquake.

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