Education in New Milieu: Redefining the role of a School

A key purpose of schooling is to acclimatize children to the present environment and

prepare them for the future. In that construct, education is evolving on the continuum of
bridging
the
present
to
the
future.

It is thereby appropriate that education has developed so many dimensions since my

own school days. Looking at todays kids, in light of expectations from them and
numerous distractions around, it is impressive to see them handling it all with such
aplomb,
and
a
lot
of
the
credit
goes
to
schools.
In our days, the emphasis was on academics as being of utmost importance since we
were headed towards a future that secured individuals with a solid educational
foundation. This led me to acquire an engineering degree, alongside my dream of being
a sportsperson. The importance of academics is paramount even today, and it shapes
my decisions even as an administrator in allowing young cricketers to focus on exams
by
creating
flexibility
in
their
sporting
calendar
obligations.
Schools like mine were also forward-thinking and allowed children with interest in areas
like sports to balance these pursuits along with meeting academic commitments. This
made it possible for youngsters like me to find our paths in alternative careers that we
had
a
passion
for.
In those days, it was not mandatory for a school to take up the duty of imparting moral
education or values to kids. However, in all the institutions I attended, there were
teachers who considered themselves custodians of the values of the next generation
and took it upon themselves to shape the kids value systems.
Todays schools have adapted to the prevailing context and impending future in several
ways. Firstly, teaching techniques are adapting to formats where learning by rote has
been replaced with learning by doing. An example of this is the increasing use of
technology
in
teaching
and
learning.
Secondly, academics is not structured towards solidity and security alone, but is aimed
at building excellence and making the child a global citizen, in light with the future that
waits
for
him/her.
Thirdly, there is emphasis on extracurricular activities towards creating a well-rounded
individual. As schools envision a future where unconventional careers will thrive, and
children can build their life on unique capabilities in various fields, schools are providing
them
with
the
space
and
support
to
explore
these.
Lastly, schools are stepping up and systemically delivering on the added responsibility
of imparting the right kind of morals and values to children as a part of education.
There are schools in India that are grounded firmly in these fundamentals, and having
seen it up close, I can say that one such example is the Pearson Schools which

integrates global standards, technology-based experiential learning, holistic curriculum

and
a
strong
foundation
of
values
and
culture.
Going forward, here are a few things, in my opinion, that schools must incorporate into
the
system:
1. Students must be prepared for life, not just for careers. Given the vagaries of life, it is
of utmost importance to develop young adults who are capable of adapting to the world
as
it
may
be
years
from
now.
2. What ought to be taught, is not thought, but the process of thinking. Students must be
encouraged to think for themselves and approach problems and situations in their own
ways, ensuring that their minds are well formed and not well filled. This calls for
transition of the role of a teacher from being an instructor to being a facilitator.
3. Acceptance of heterogeneity is essential in todays world where we live in highly
diverse societies. Schools are one place where the child begins to see what is not
his/her own cultural, economic or social background, and hence schools must inculcate
in its students respect for those who are different from them.
4. While delivering on curriculum, teachers should drive application based, creative and
innovative thinking. They should encourage students to move beyond textual learnings
and explore the practical implications of what they read in their books.
Just as schools have responsibilities, as parents, we are accountable for making the
right
choices
for
our
childrens
education
and
future.
The author is Anil Kumble, eminent Indian cricketer and Brand Ambassador- Pearson
Education Services.

The Importance Of Quality Education In Haiti

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY | SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL AND
PUBLIC AFFAIRS
FAFO OSLO | Youth and Education in Haiti Disincentives, Vulnerabilities
and Constraints
First, that in order for a country to develop, it must have adequate human capital to
do so. Second, that human capital is obtained through education. Third, that
education is a pivotal part of human development, and can positively influence
standards of living, health and governance.
Beginning in 1948, the international community recognized education as a
fundamental human right, through Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights (United Nations, 1948). Articles 13 and 14 of the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights further stipulate that primary education shall
be free and compulsory to all, secondary and higher education shall be equally

accessible to all, and the development of a system of schools at all levels shall be
actively pursued, (United Nations, 1948). These international benchmarks on
education are based on the premise that education has a strong impact on a
countrys development.
Investment in universal education at all levels (primary, secondary, and higher) has
been proven to have positive impacts on individuals, their community, and nations
(Colclough, 1982); (Barro & Sala-i-Martin, 2003); (Barro & Lee, 2001); (Hanushek
& Kimco, 2000); (Hanushek, 2003). This is because education serves as an
equalizer which helps shrink discriminatory socioeconomic and gender gaps
within society (The World Bank, n.d.). Providing men and women, both rich and
poor, an equal opportunity to gain foundational knowledge and expertise training in
a particular field can significantly reduce poverty and inequality (The World Bank,
n.d.). A more highly trained workforce increases national productivity, which leads
to higher income and strengthens the economic health of a nation. This is a
powerful contributor to development by allowing the country to become more
competitive within the global market (The World Bank, n.d.).
Education not only leads to economic development but also health and human
development. Health, as defined by the Education Development Centre, is not
simply the absence of illness but the presence of physical, mental and social welfare
(The World Bank, n.d.). If people are healthy, they can take full advantage of every
opportunity to learn, work, and enjoy their lives. Educated individuals are more
likely to be knowledgeable on a variety of healthcare topics, such as hygiene,
nutrition, and reproductive health, and can thus employ the proper tools to lead
healthy lifestyles. Furthermore, because schools provide a space to learn positive
social skills such as collaboration and conflict resolution, education has been linked
with democratization, peace and security (The World Bank, n.d.).
As detailed below, The World Bank further details the benefits of education on the
individual and society, as follows (The World Bank, n.d.).
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Benefits To The Individual
Education can have a profound impact on an individuals health and nutrition as
well as productivity and earnings. The more educated a person is the more likely
they receive information on proper hygiene, healthy dieting and ways to prevent
communicable diseases; all of which can lead to increased life expectancy. In
addition, research has established that every year of schooling increases individual
wages for both men and women by a worldwide average of 10 percent. In poor
countries, the gains are even greater. Education can thus be a great leveler,
reducing societal inequalities and enabling larger numbers of a population to share
in the growth process. Even more, education is particularly powerful for girls, who
gain critical knowledge about reproductive health, which may increase their childs
mortality and welfare through better nutrition and higher immunization rates.
Benefits To Society

A more educated society is more economically competitive, environmentally

conscious and peaceful. An educated and skilled workforce is a pillar of the
knowledge-based economy. This is important in a world where comparative
advantages among nations come less from cheap labor or natural resources and
increasingly from technical innovations and the competitive use of knowledge.
Education can promote concern for the environment, thus enhancing natural
resource management, national capacity for disaster prevention and the adoption of
new, environmentally friendly technologies. It can also significantly reduce crime as
robust school environments can strengthen academic performance while mitigating
absenteeism and drop out ratesprecursors of delinquent and violent behavior. By
promoting peace and stability education can also contribute to democratization.
Peace educationspanning issues of human security, equity, justice, and
intercultural understanding is of paramount importance. Countries with higher
rates of primary schooling and a smaller gap between rates of boys and girls
schooling tend to enjoy greater democracy. Democratic political institutions (such
as power-sharing and clean elections) are more likely to exist in countries with
higher literacy rates and education levels.
Higher Education
Primary education, as opposed to higher education, tends to be the focus of
education development initiatives, due to the perception that it has a greater direct
impact on economic growth. However, a recent study suggests that higher
education is both a result and a determinant of income, and can produce both
public and private benefits (Bloom, Hartley, & Rosovsky, 2006). The study also
suggests that higher education may create greater tax revenue, increase savings
and investments, and may be the catalyst for a more entrepreneurial and civic
society. Higher education can also improve technology and strengthen governance.
Many observers attribute Indias success in entering the world economic stage as
stemming from its decades-long efforts to provide high-quality, technically
oriented, tertiary education to a significant number of its citizens (Bloom, Canning,
& Chan, 2006).
EDUCATION IN HAITI
Prior to the Age of Enlightenment of the 18th and 19th centuries, education was the
responsibility of parents and the church. At that time is was primarily available to
the upper classes and thus served to further widen the socioeconomic gap between
the working class and elite members of society (Encyclopdia Britannica, 2011).
With the onset of the French and American revolutions in the late 1700s,
revolutionaries sought for education to be recognized as a public good (Brockliss,
1987). As such, the state would assume an active role in the education sector
making it accessible to all. The development of socialist theory in the nineteenth
century further supported this view, as it emphasized that the states primary
responsibility was to ensure the economic and social well-being of the community
through government intervention and regulation in all sectors. While preEnlightenment scholars believed education to be a privilege, the period after the
revolutions of 18th and 19th centuries came to view education as a right
(Encyclopdia Britannica, 2011).

Education policy in Haiti, at that time, paralleled this thinking. The first Haitian
constitution of 1801 mirrored the pre-Enlightenment view of education that the
private sector should ultimately be responsible for the education of its youth. The
constitution stated that, every person has the right to form private
establishments for the education and instruction of youth (Haiti Government,
1801). However, with the constitution revision of 1807, the practice of providing
public education for all was established. Article 34 of the 1807 constitution
establishes that, A central school shall be established in each Division and proper
schools shall be established in each District (Haiti Government, 1807). However,
despite the influence of the French on Haitis state formation, it wasnt until more
than 100 years after the French had established education as a human right that
Haiti incorporated this principle into their constitution. In 1987, the GoH redrafted
its 1987 constitution of Haiti to include Article 22, which reads, The State
recognizes the right of every citizen to decent housing, education, food and social
security (Haiti Government, 1987).
Despite the 1987 constitution of Haiti proclamation of education as a human right,
many individuals still consider it a privilege to have the opportunity to attend
school, where alternatively, in many other parts of the world, education is
considered a human right. Families are often willing to sacrifice up to half their
income, of approximately 400 USD annually, to send their children to school
(McNulty, 2011). However, an inordinate number of children do not have the
opportunity to enjoy the same privilege (Bruemmer, 2011). Of the approximately
three to 3.5 million school-age children in Haiti, 800,000 do not have access to
education (Bruemmer, 2011). In fact, Haitian public schools have the capacity to
serve only one quarter of the school-age population (The World Bank, 2006). Even
before the earthquake, 25 percent of Haitis school districts, mostly in rural areas,
did not have a school. Due to these challenges, the average Haitian child receives
only five years of education (Bruemmer, 2011).
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Haitian Education System Chart English Un

After completing nine years of primary school, the students can continue to
secondary. Secondary education lasts for an additional four years, after which the
students are qualified for university and professional training. The vocational and
technical training falls into three categories. The most advanced are the Technical
Education Institutes, which require completion of secondary education, hence 13
years of formal education. The second group consists of Vocational Education
Schools. These are more practically oriented than the schools belonging to the first
group and require the completion of the second cycle. The biggest category
of vocational training is the Skill Training Centres which often do not require any
prior education. The biggest group comprises the Skill Training Centres, and the
vast majority of them are private, operating outside the control of the government.
Weak Public Education Sector, Mixed Private Education Sector
To provide children with access to education is, by law, an obligation of the Haitian
State. It is however a responsibility the weak state, marked by decades of

dictatorships and economic mismanagement, has not proved capable, or willing, to

take on. The governments weak involvement in the education sector has created a
huge market for private actors. Only 8 percent of Haitian primary schools are staterun (MENFP 2007). The remaining 92 percent of the schools are non-public; the
vast majority of them do not receive any public subsidies. More than 80 percent of
Haitian children currently enrolled in school are in private schools. Education in Haiti
is a business, encompassing both serious and not so serious actors.
The high number of private education institutions, combined with the weak capacity
of the MENFP, has left the Haitian government with little influence over the
education sector. According to the Ministrys own numbers, more than 75 percent of
the private elementary schools do not have the mandatory licence, and are
operating, unsanctioned, outside of government control. For these schools, the
government has control of neither the quality of the education they offer nor the
fees they charge.
Among the schools in the private sector we find the very best and the very worst of
what the Haitian education sector has to offer. At the top of the scale we find a
category of well reputed, elite schools, what Haitians call Lekol Tt Neg or bigshot schools. Most of them are religiously founded and almost all of them are
urban-based. They are well equipped, have the best teachers, and are the obvious
choice for the privileged families who would never consider sending their children to
a public school. However, the private schools are also to be found at the very
bottom of the scale. In the capital, Port-au-Prince, private primary schools
are found on almost every street corner. Because of the density of them, people
condescendingly call them Lekol Borlette, literally meaning lottery schools,
named after the small lottery stands that are also found on every corner. Another
explanation given for the name is that students in these schools are assumed to
have the same probability of graduating as winning the lottery (Salmi 2000). These
urban, private schools are usually short-lived and do not have the necessary
competence and resources to provide quality teaching.
For some of the schools, the objective is clearly more directed towards making
money than towards educating children, and often the classes are overfilled and the
teachers unqualified. There are formal criteria set by the government to be followed
when establishing a new school, hiring qualified teachers being one of them.
However, as the majority of the private schools are operating unlicensed, getting
around the formal criteria and starting up a new school is not too difficult if one has
some resources and a few good contacts. In rural areas, community schools are
often established by NGOs, local associations or simply a local initiator with some
basic schooling. Local churches are frequently used as facilities, or the teaching
takes place in someones backyard or anba tonl, under a makeshift roof
without walls. The community schools make an important contribution in an area
where the public sector is failing. However, they are struggling to get qualified
teachers, learning materials and suitable school buildings and are often incapable of
offering teaching of acceptable quality. Often they will only teach the first cycle,
from first to fourth grade. Higher grades than that will in many cases exceed the
teachers own level of education. The very low salaries make it impossible to attract
qualified teachers to these rural positions.

The private schools are heterogeneous, not only in terms of quality but also in
terms of ideology, organization and motivations. While some private schools are
established primarily for profit, many schools are also established for non-profit
reasons by local initiators in communities where no public school is available, or the
local public school does not have sufficient capacity. A number of schools are also
run or supported by local or international NGOs, or religious communities. Some of
these schools subsidize the students and have beneficial arrangements for
marginalized families. However, in a context of such widespread poverty, the nonprofit actors are not able to fill all the gaps. One possible explanation for the low
enrolment rate is that considerable variation in the quality of education is
weakening the parents incentives to enrol their children if a high quality school is
out of reach because of economic reasons or due to geographical distance. If this is
the case, simply increasing the number of schools will not necessarily lead to an
improvement in the number of children enrolled in school if not steps are taken to
also improve and level out the quality of education provided in the schools.
Private Education
There are approximately 16,000 to 17,000 primary schools in Haiti. Private sector
schools account for roughly 80 percent of all schools (primary, secondary, higher
education) (McNulty, 2011). Although it is considered to be the poorest country in
the Western Hemisphere, Haiti has the second highest percentage of private
school attendance in the world (Bruemmer, 2011). Article 32 of the 1987
constitution of Haiti stipulates that the State guarantees the right to education.
It goes on to say that primary schooling is compulsory under penalties to be
prescribed by law. Classroom facilities and teaching materials shall be provided by
the State to elementary school students free of charge (Haiti Government, 1987).
As of the early 1900s, the government had only built 350 schools that primarily
served the children of the political elite (Salmi, 1998). Eventually, religious, and
then non-denominational, for-profit organizations built and staffed schools to fill the
gap in services that the government was unable to provide. This has resulted in a
system in which only 20 percent of students are served by the public school system
and admission is highly competitive (Bruemmer, 2011). To date, the governments
promises have not been realized and in fact, the reality is quite the opposite. Due
to the severe lack of regulation and accountability mechanisms, private schools are
able to charge tuition rates disproportionate to what average Haitian households
can feasibly bear. Annual tuition rates range from approximately 50 USD in rural
areas to 250 USD in urban areas (Wolff, 2008). Given this history, the Haitian
private education system has grown by default, rather than by the deliberate
intention of the state (Salmi, 1998). However, if the GoH shut down the private
education sector, its education system would collapse altogether.
Child Labour
Poverty and vulnerability are pushing far too many young children out of school and
into the world of work. Some children remain in school, but are disadvantaged
doubling up studies with work. For households living in poverty, children may be
pulled out of school and into work in the face of external shocks such as natural
disasters, rising costs, or a parents sickness or unemployment. By leaving school
to enter the labour market prematurely, children miss a chance to lift themselves,

their families, and their communities out of a cycle of poverty. Sometimes children
are exposed to the worst forms of labour that is damaging to their physical, mental
and emotional well-being.
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Enrollment Rates
Haiti has one of the lowest enrollment rates in the world, with only 55 percent of
children aged six to twelve enrolled in school, and less than one-third of those
enrolled reaching fifth grade. According to Making a Quantitative Leap Forward,
the GoHs 2007 Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, of the 123,000
students admitted to Haitian secondary schools in 2004, only 82,000, or 67
percent, were able to receive secondary schooling, and most of those who
completed their secondary schooling were unable to eventually gain admission to a
university (The World Bank, 2006). Low enrollment and high drop out rates are
primarily due to economic hardship, high grade repetition rates, and linguistic
barriers (Luzincourt & Gulbrandson, 2010). Language can become an obstacle to
achieving education, primarily due to the fact that a majority of Haitian families
speak Kreyl in the home and the parents of many students are not French literate,
yet lesson plans are taught in French. Additionally, many families are unable to pay
the direct and indirect costs of education; therefore, many, especially those with
multiple children, are forced to make difficult decisions in deciding which of
their children will be provided an education. This ultimately leads to many children
being withdrawn from school, which disproportionately affects girls (Luzincourt &
Gulbrandson, 2010). Some parents choose to rotate education opportunities among
their children, allowing siblings to take turns attending school. This cycle of
interrupted schooling leads to higher repetition rates, which in turn increases the
cost of education for the family. Due in part to these factors, approximately 25
percent of those 15 to 29 years of age remain illiterate (Daumerie & Hardee, 2010).
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Incentives And Disincentives To Education
In a western context with free education and nearly universal enrollment, whether
a child should go to school or not is not a decision of the parents. Education is
compulsory by law, and parents who prevent their children from attending school
could face legal sanctions.
Incentives for basic-level education are as such not decisive for whether or not a
child will be given schooling. The value of education is taken for granted. Education
is perceived as instrumental in terms of social mobility, as essential in terms of
socializing children into good citizens, as well as having an intrinsic value for the
child. Very few parents would question the importance of sending their children to
school. When it concerns higher education on the other hand, incentives become
important.
Whether a young person chooses to proceed with higher education after finishing
compulsory schooling may depend on whether he or she is accepted to the
preferred school, the cost of the school and the expected loss of income during the
time of study. He or she also needs
to consider to what extent completing a higher education will lead to an advantage

in the labor market, and perhaps most importantly the alternative to continue
with schooling. If the outlook of getting a better paid job is not improved after
additional years of education, the incentive to start working right away may be
stronger than investing time and money in further schooling. Still many proceed
with long educations that do not necessarily pay off in monetary terms in search of
a job they find interesting, higher social status or because education is perceived as
a value in itself. In a context where education is costly, access limited
and enrollment in practice optional, the incentives for parents to enroll their
children in school become important as early as at the primary level. Whether
families with limited resources prioritize sending their children to school will be
influenced by the perceived value of education, the quality of the
educational system and the alternatives available, for instance the demand for
child labor. If the children after finishing years of expensive schooling are still badly
equipped for finding a skilled job or if the education system is structured in a way
that makes it difficult to advance, the incentives for enrolling children in school are
weakened. If the reasons for low enrollment are weak incentives for education,
social protection initiatives (i.e., cash transfers and subsidized school fees) are not
likely to have the desirable effect. Instead solutions should be explored in improved
education and labor market policy.
Teacher Salaries
Within the existing structure it is exceptionally difficult to attract and retain
qualified teachers, especially in the public sector where teachers sometimes work
for many months without receiving earned compensation. Low salaries, at
approximately 60 USD per month, in both the public and private sector, result in
high teacher turnover, in addition to many staff members not reporting to school on
time and/or consistently (Lunde, 2008). The increased presence of international
NGOs in Haiti since the earthquake has presented competition for quality personnel
within Haitis public education sector, as international organizations are typically
able to offer higher wages. Low salaries also contribute to, and are partially
responsible for, the brain drain effect in which large numbers of Haitians migrate in
order to achieve a higher level of education and do not receive adequate incentives
to return. It is estimated that 80 to 86 percent of Haitians with a secondary
education leave the country (McNulty, 2011).
To be able to make a living, many of the rural school teachers need to supplement
their salaries with agricultural activities. This means that the time they have
accessible for teaching is reduced, in particular during the sowing and harvesting
season. In Maissade it was also a concern that teachers cross the border to the
Dominican Republic to work on the sugarcane plantations during the harvesting
seasons. This may leave the children without teachers for weeks and months at a
time. In order to pay the teachers, the schools are dependent upon collecting
school fees from the students parents. As a significant number of the children who
gain admission at the beginning of the school year drop out during the year, the
total amount of income to the school is steadily reduced while their expenses
remain the same. The result is often delays in the payment of the teachers
salaries. Teachers say that when this happens, they have to stay away for a while

to put pressure on the directors to provide their pay. In the meantime the
children are missing out on their teaching and the preparations for their exams.
Lack Of Qualified Teachers
The lack of qualified teachers is one of the main problems in the Haitian education
sector. The education sector suffered a serious blow during the time of the Duvalier
regimes, when large parts of the educated elite escaped to the US and Canada. Two
decades later, Haiti is still suffering from the consequences of this void of
professional capacity. There are few qualified instructors available to teach the next
generation of teachers and other professionals. Among the few who do complete a
higher education, many intend to leave Haiti and find a more prosperous future in
the US, Canada or Europe. The brain drain from Haiti is one of the most serious
obstacles to reform and improvement within the education sector. According to the
World Bank, a staggering eight out of ten Haitians with college degrees live
outside of Haiti (Schiff & Caglar 2005). The fact that human resources in the
country are so weak makes it very challenging to rebuild and improve the education
system. In order to rebuild the education sector, as well as to strengthen the
national capacity for development in general, it is essential to enact the
constitutional changes necessary to allow double citizenship for Haitians settled
abroad and encourage the return of the Diaspora. When UNESCO conducted an
evaluation of the teachers competence in 1997, 25 percent or almost 11,500
teachers had not completed a primary education, a level equal to 9th grade. The
majority of unqualified teachers were to be found in private schools. While 48
percent of the public schools teachers were qualified at the time of the survey, only
8 percent of the teachers in the private schools were qualified. Knowing that the
number of unlicensed private schools has increased during the eleven years that
has passed since this survey was conducted, it is more likely that the number of
unqualified teachers in Haitian schools has increased rather than decreased.
Although international donors like the World Bank have committed to increase the
capacity of the teaching colleges, it will still take a number of years to fill the gap
between the supply and demand of qualified teachers. A national test of the
teachers knowledge in the subjects they are teaching was recently conducted by
IHFOSED (Institut Hatien de Formation en Sciences de lducation). The
preliminary results are depressing, revealing that large parts of the profession are
not sufficiently trained to be able to teach the curriculum to the children. Often the
teachers themselves have only completed a few grades more than the classes
they are teaching, and without appropriate teaching material, they are ill equipped
for providing the students the necessary teaching to obtain a satisfying level of
knowledge and prepare them for their final exams.
Teachers salaries are low, making the profession unattractive to educated
professionals. Teachers in public primary schools earn around 4000 HTG ($100
USD) per month. The salary is regulated according to a national wage system and
adjusted depending on experience. The salaries for teachers in the private sector
vary according to the quality of the school, but in the rural areas it is normally
considerably lower than in the public schools. Private rural teachers on average
make around 1500 HTG ($38 USD) per month. If the quality of education is
weakening parents incentive to send their children to school, resources need to be

directed towards teachers training. However, educating more teachers will not be
sufficient if low wages in the education sector make alternative livelihoods more
attractive, hence preventing teachers from working with education. In particular it
is challenging to make teachers stay in the rural areas. In the experience of NGOs
who provide teachers training, teachers who receive training find themselves
qualified for better paid jobs in the cities and may chose to relocate, leaving the
area even more deprived of teaching resources than before.
The education level achieved by most school teachers in Haiti is extremely low. On
average, most private school teachers have completed nine years of schooling. In
fact, only 20 percent of teachers in private schools are graduates of teacher training
colleges (Salmi, 1998). The lack of professionally trained teachers contributes to
the low quality of many Haitian schools. This is, again, due in part to poor wages
and the migration of trained teachers abroad. The lack of teacher training is
especially apparent in disciplines such as chemistry and physics, where teachers
may be unable to conduct basic laboratory experiments (Luzincourt & Gulbrandson,
2010).
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Lack Of Physical Access To Education
Lack of physical availability of schools is a problem in some of the more remote
rural areas. In some areas one is unable to find any schools within reasonable
reach. More often there is a lack of access to affordable schools. The density of
schools in the rural areas is much lower than in the urban areas. In particular there
is a lack of public schools, which is the only type of schooling many of the rural
households can afford. Most Haitian households have access to a primary school
within five kilometers. For 92 percent of the population it takes half an hour or less
to walk to the nearest primary school (EMMUS III 2000). What this
number conceals is that the low capacity in the local schools may make it necessary
for children to enroll in schools further away from their homes. The nearest school
may also be out of reach due to economic costs. Less than 10 percent of the
schools are public and, as is the case with all public infrastructures in Haiti, the
public schools are concentrated in the urban areas or in the regional centers. The
further away from the center one lives, the less the chance of finding a public
school within your area. The private schools often cost more per month than
the public do per year. For many parents the only way to get their children into
school is to try to get them into one of the public schools, even if that means that
their children will have to walk for hours every day.
In Jacmel a public primary school in Meyer, an area outside the town center is the
only public primary school in the Meyer region. The students came from all across
the region, many of them from areas far away, as far as Cap Rouge. The walk from
Cap Rouge to Meyer takes approximately 2.5 hours each way. To be able to reach
school in time for their morning classes, the children have to get up before dawn.
Some of them, in particular girls, also have to help with domestic tasks before
leaving their home in the morning. As a result the children are tired and hungry
when they reach school, making them unfocused and inattentive during classes.

The teachers claim that the children are so tired from walking and getting up early
that they fall asleep during the classes.
The story repeated itself in other public schools. According to the teachers, children
as young as the first grade will walk for hours in order to get to school. The long
distance is the main reason why children drop out during the school year, not
economic concerns. Some of the parents will tell you that, but the real reason is
that the children are just too tired. In September, at the beginning of the school
year, the public school in Meyer had 416 students. In early December this number
drops to 370 students. In addition many of the children had a low attendance rate.
Since Meyer is a public school, the school fees are paid at the beginning of the year,
instead of in monthly rates which is the practice in private schools. It is reasonable
to expect the long distance to be an important reason for children to stop coming to
school. When the walk exceeds several hours every day, it does become tiresome,
especially for the youngest children. Some of the families try to solve the problem
by sending their children to school only some days a week, but without sufficient
attendance, the children risk failing their exams and find themselves in a
situation where they have to repeat the class the following year.
The long distance is also likely to be a contributing factor why many Haitian
children are over-aged at the time of enrollment Parents do not want to send their
six years old out on long daily walks, and instead delay their entry until they are
older. The long distance to school is a disincentive both for the parents to send
their children and for the children to attend. The parents may be concerned about
sending their youngest out early in the morning while it still is dark, in particular
they may feel uneasy about letting girls walk alone. Concerning older children,
these are likely to have more responsibility within the household. The more time
the children spend away from home for school, the less time they have available for
performing domestic tasks, working on farmland or helping out with family
business. If the family is dependent upon the help from the children, the
additional time spent on getting to and from school will strengthen the incentive to
keep them at home. Long daily walks may also weaken the childrens motivation for
going to school.
Access To The Complete Cycle Of Education
While most Haitian households do have a primary school teaching, the first, and
often also the second cycle within physical, although not necessarily economic
reach, the schools teaching higher grades are more strongly concentrated in the
central areas. According to the
Demographic Health Survey from 2000, only 28 percent of the rural households
have schools that teach the third cycle within five kilometers, while for 26 percent
the nearest school that teaches the third cycle is more than 15 kilometers away
(EMMUS III 2000). The lack of access to schools teaching higher grades, in addition
to a steep increase in costs when students move on from the second to the third
cycle, have led to an huge gap in third cycle enrollment in urban and rural areas.
While more than 40 percent of the children in and around Port-au-Prince continue
to 7th grade, less than 10 percent of the children in the rural areas do so. For the
other urban areas, the enrollment rate is around 30 percent (IHSI/Fafo 2003). In

order to continue education beyond the 4th or 6th grade, the rural children will
often have to travel long distances daily or go and stay with urban households in
Port-au-Prince or other central areas. These boarding arrangements take many
different shapes. Often the host families will be relatives or close friends of the
family, but boarding is also arranged with strangers through intermediaries. In its
strictest sense, parents pay the childs school expenses, in addition to board and
upkeep to the household where the child is staying. In other cases the parents will
donate gifts and shares of the agricultural harvest to the host family, while the
students may be contributing to the household with domestic work. This should not
be confused with restavek-arrangements where children from poor families are
placed in (at times marginally) more prosperous households, with hopes that they
will be given an education in exchange for domestic work. These children are
usually denied schooling and simply end up as unpaid domestic workers
(Sommerfelt 2002).
In general, in all places outside the capital, people portray a negative picture of
Port-au-Prince as an unsafe place they would not go if they did not absolutely need
to. Rather than sending their children to Port-au-Prince in order to pursue their
education, parents want the possibility of letting the children complete their studies
in their area of origin.
Expectations Of Education
The Haitian education system is designed so that students need to complete both
primary and secondary levels, altogether 13 years of schooling, before they can
apply for a technical school or university. For most Haitian children this is far
beyond their reach. Still Haitian parents have very high expectations about how far
their children will continue with their education. When discussing at what level
education starts to pay off and how long the children need to stay in school to be
able to find a qualified job afterwards, most respondents replied that they would
need a university degree. To complete primary school is of no use, one
respondent argued, you can have a conversation, but you cant get a job. Literacy
is recognized as an important and highly valued skill, but being able to read and
write was not seen as sufficient for achieving an advantage in the labour market.
For the vast majority of the people it would demand a dramatic improvement in
their living conditions to be able to support their children all the way
through university. Nevertheless, the people in the rural areas both in the south
and in the central areas assigned a high priority to giving their children the
opportunity for an education. As the agricultural output is decreasing with
deteriorating soil quality, the need for parents to make their children capable of
finding a job outside the agricultural sector becomes more pressing. There are
few jobs available on the countryside and it is hard for rural migrants to succeed in
the cities. The reason why Haitian parents have such high expectations regarding
their childrens education needs to be seen in relation to the lack of an intermediary
level of education discussed previously. Another reason for the lack of value
assigned to lower levels of education is the importance of personal connections in
getting a job. It is an illusion that education leads to employment, one of our
respondent uttered in resignation. It is just a trap. Something they want you to
believe. The only thing that leads to employment is knowing the right people. It

is a discouraging fact that having the right connections is an important asset in

gaining access to work, but also in many cases to education.
The general impression is that people place a high value on education and are
willing to go far in order to give their children the opportunity of schooling. From
townspeople in Port-au-Prince and NGO-workers it is sometimes argued that
people in the countryside do not see education as important and place too low
priority on sending their children to school. This is seen as a contributing factor to
the large discrepancy between enrollment in rural and urban areas. The underlying
assumption is that rural people are ignorant and unable or unwilling to make the
right decisions for their children. If this was to be the fact, judicial interventions
sanctioning parents against not sending their children to school could be an
appropriate response. It is an uncomfortable truth that not all parents always act in
the best interest of their children. This can have a number of idiosyncratic causes
like substance abuse, mental illness or simply a lack of altruistic disposition towards
their own children for unknown reasons. Child abuse is taking place in all societies
at all times. Parents cannot always be trusted to protect the interests of their
children, which is why children are entitled to legal protection both through national
laws and the Convention of the Rights of the Child. Nevertheless, in a Haitian
context where the education sector is unable to absorb the number of children of
compulsory school age, the quality of education often is not up to standard and
widespread poverty is making it impossible for many to pay the school expenses of
their children, sanctioning parents is not the way to go. First of all education needs
to be made physically and economically accessible. Secondly, the education
provided needs to be made relevant. It is important to note that
marginalized families actions are motivated out of survival of the household,
sometimes at the expense of the well-being of the individual member. Will
investments in education lead to jobs for household members and increased income
to the household? If the answer to these questions is no, it may be a rational
decision by the poorest households not to spend money on sending children to
school, but instead prioritize the limited resources towards food, fertilizers
and medicines to ensure household survival. Marginalized households need to
engage in a number of strategies to ensure the survival of the
household, sometimes at the expense of opportunities for the individual members.
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Classrooms
Classroom sizes often surge to more than 70 children per, with one teacher
presiding (Kenny, 2011). Naturally, classrooms populated with such high numbers
of students are too large for one teacher to manage. This creates an environment in
which children are unable to ask questions, receive thoughtful feedback, and do not
receive individualized attention. Classrooms are typically ill equipped, lacking
textbooks, desks, chairs, and basic teaching materials, such as chalk. There is a
severe lack of school spaces, especially in areas hardest hit by the earthquake, to
accommodate the numbers of school-age children, in addition to a lack of
technology in nearly all schools such as computers and Internet access, which
further curtails learning (Luzincourt & Gulbrandson, 2010). Schools vary in

appearance from plain cinder-block structures with wooden benches and outdoor
latrines to those with brightly colored walls and modern amenities.
Vulnerabilities And Constraints
Poor people normally have low resilience to risks threatening their well-being. They
often lack economic buffers like savings or access to credit, as well as access to
formal risk management arrangements like insurance or welfare benefits
(Holzmann and Jrgensen 2000). A failed harvest, for instance, can be disastrous to
a farmer without savings or access to credit. Some of the risks that make
households vulnerable are idiosyncratic, like illness or death in the family, crime or
unemployment. Others risks are threatening on a community or macro level, like
natural disasters, epidemics, riots or war. Whether the risks are unforeseen or
predicted might be of less relevance if a household lacks resources to prevent or
avoid the events. The household remains vulnerable, but may engage in different
mitigation strategies to decrease the potential impact of a future risk. Examples of
mitigation strategies may be to diversify agricultural production, vary different
sources of income, participate in informal saving arrangements or extend social
networks, for instance through child placement or marriage.
To not enroll all children in school, but instead have some work at home and let
some live with other households may be a part of such a mitigation strategy. When
the harmful events occur, households engage in coping strategies to relive the
impact of the risk. Examples of coping strategies may be to sell assets, borrow
money, migrate, sell labor, reduce consumption by, for instance, reducing food
intake for some or all household members or take children out of school. To
understand the behavior and organization of poor households, it is important
to identify what kind of risks they are vulnerable to and what strategies they
engage in to ensure the survival of the household. If non-enrollment of children is a
result of household poverty or a part of a risk management strategy for vulnerable
households, this calls for social policy interventions that can increase the
households resilience to risks, for instance access to credit or insurance
arrangements.
It is important to recognize that the options available to the poorest households are
severely limited by their lack of resources. For the most marginalized households
the money needed to send their children to school may exceed the total income of
the household. Not enrolling children can as such not be seen as a part of a
household strategy. Instead the lack of economic resources is a binding constraint
that does not allow enrollment of all children as an option to the household. In
these cases cash transfers to the households may be a way of ensuring education
for the children, under the assumption that households place a high value on
the education of their children. The high rates of dropout and failures can be
interpreted in this direction. Enrolling children in school is a risky investment if you
know chances are they will not be able to complete the full year or be allowed to
proceed to the next grade. Alternatively it can be interpreted in the opposite
direction that education is not given a high value, and that taking children out of
school in difficult periods as such is not seen as entailing a high cost. How
households prioritize taking children out of school in comparison with

alternative coping strategies gives an indication of how important education in

perceived to be.
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School Expenditure As a Constraint To Education
Being one of the 20 poorest countries in the world, Haiti is the only country in
which more than half of the students are enrolled in private schools (The World
Bank 2006). The consequence of the privatization of the education system is that
private households are carrying the economic burden of both the real cost of
education and the private actors profit. The fact that more than three quarters of
the population live in poverty (defined as less than $2 USD per day) and more than
half of the population lives in extreme poverty (defined as less than $1 USD per
day) makes it evident that the cost of schooling is a major obstacle to
universal education for Haitian children (Egset & Sletten 2004). The percent of
people living in poverty is twice as high in the rural areas as in the
metropolitan area (82 percent vs 41 percent) and the share of people living in
extreme poverty is three times higher (59 percent vs 20 percent). The population in
urban areas other than the metropolitan Port-au-Prince area finds themselves
between these two extremes. The difference in urban and rural income is also
reflected in the enrolment of children in primary education. According to the Haiti
Living Condition Survey, half of the children of compulsory school age in rural areas
are not in school, while the corresponding share for the urban areas is one out of
four (IHSI/Fafo 2003). In public schools the school fees are paid at the beginning of
the year, as opposed to private schools where the students pay every month. The
school fees for public primary schools are set by the government to a total of 100
HTG per year, a little more than $2.5 USD. For private primary schools the fees
vary significantly, from a few hundred gourdes per year for community schools to
several thousand per month for the more well-reputed urban schools. The
household also needs to cover the costs of uniforms, shoes, books and other
learning materials. The expenditures for text books alone can easily exceed 1000
2000 HTG per grade. For the poorest half of the population this equals around 10
percent of their income per child per year in text books only. Despite the school
fees for public primary schools being regulated by the state, there are cases where
the fees the parents ended up paying were substantially higher. For instance, in
one of the rural communities in Dpartement du Sud-Est, parents reported that the
director at the local public primary school demanded 400 HTG per year in
school fees. No attempt was made to justify to the parents why they were charged
fees four times higher than what has been decided by the national government.
Due to the lack of capacity in the public schools and since private schools are even
more expensive, the parents feel that they have no other option than to comply and
pay what is asked of them. The parents lack of alternatives makes them vulnerable
to exploitation from opportunistic actors, both from public and private
sectors. Parents with children in private schools have the monthly obligation to pay
their childrens
school fees. Many fail in doing so, with the result that their children are forced to
drop out, and, if lucky, only get a chance to try again the following year. However,
among children in public schools as well there is a high dropout rate during the

year. The parents reported that it was the exam fees at the end of the year which
caused them the most problems. If they are not able to raise the money necessary
to pay for the exams at the end of the year, the children are not allowed to sit for
their exams and the whole year is lost. This contributes to the high dropout rates,
as early as the first years of primary school. Many children are been denied
promotion from first to second, or second to third, grade because of their parents
lack of ability to pay for their exams.
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Accreditation And National Testing
As mentioned previously, there is very little regulation, oversight or monitoring of
the education system in Haiti. Instructors do not require teaching degrees or
certifications, there are no official/legal permits to be obtained, and there is no
standard curriculum (McNulty, 2011). However, it should be noted that the Haitian
public school curriculum has been adapted to that of France since 1958.
The GoH does not have official school accreditations. At the time of the earthquake,
there were only ten accredited schools in the country. These accreditations were
achieved through three different external systems: the US Agency for International
Development (USAID), The World Bank, and the IDB (McNulty, 2011). The primary
tool by which the GoH monitors the standards of its public schools is through
annual national exam testing. The Ministry of Education implements yearly national
testing administered in all recognized public and private institutions completing
sixth, ninth, eleventh, and twelfth grades. The tests are similar in content to those
administered four decades ago in France and those currently offered in francophone
African countries (Wolff, 2008).
Government Spending On Education
Although the education system in Haiti is largely inadequate, the government is not
in a position to close deficient schools, as it is not equipped to take on the
additional responsibility, nor does it have the resources or capacity to do so. Before
the earthquake, the GoH was spending approximately 100 million USD per year on
schools, approximately two percent of its GDP and approximately 41 USD per
student. This is slightly less than half the regional average of budget allocation for
public education (McNulty, 2011).
Additionally, the education system suffers from rural neglect. It is highly
geographically centralized, with only 20 percent of education-related expenditures
reaching rural areas, which account for 70 percent of Haitis population (Luzincourt
& Gulbrandson, 2010). Of the total number of universities in Haiti, 87 percent were
located within or in close proximity to Port-au-Prince before the earthquake
(INURED, 2010). To further illustrate this point, in 2007, 23 communal sectors
lacked a school, and 145 were without a public school, all located in rural areas
(The World Bank, 2006).
Language Of Instruction
Kreyl and French are the two official languages of Haiti and most, if not all, formal
government and private sector communications are conducted in French. However,

typically, the language of instruction in primary schools is in Kreyl. It is unclear at

what grade level instruction shifts to French. What is known is that the national
examinations are administered in French, regardless of the fact that most Haitian
families speak Kreyl in their homes on a daily basis. There are great
inconsistencies in the language of instruction by region, level, and subject matter
(Wolff, 2008).
The Haitian Ministry Of National Education And Professional Training
The Haitian Ministry of National Education and Professional Training (MENFP) is
charged with regulating the education system in Haiti. The ministrys mission is
twofold: to provide education services to its citizens and to play a normative and
regulatory role (Luzincourt & Gulbrandson, 2010). However, MENFP does not have
the capacity to meet its mandate of monitoring, evaluating, and reporting on the
academic performance of schools primarily because it is over burdened and lacking
adequate support (Luzincourt & Gulbrandson, 2010). For example, there is one
inspector responsible for providing accreditation, pedagogical supervision, and
administrative support for every six-thousand students (Luzincourt & Gulbrandson,
2010). Organizationally, the governance and policy-making functions are not
separated from management functions and currently, an independent policymaking body does not exist (Luzincourt & Gulbrandson, 2010).
Previous Education Reforms
The current education reform in Haiti is but one of many previous efforts to
revitalize the education system. Three major recent reform efforts were The
Bernard Reform of 1978, The National Plan on Education and Training (NPET) of
1997, and The Presidential Commission for Education in Haiti of 2008. The Bernard
Reform was an attempt to modernize the Haitian education system. The Bernard
Reform sought to align the educational structure with labor market demands by
introducing vocational training programs designed as alternatives to traditional
education. In addition, Kreyl began to be utilized in classrooms as the language of
instruction in the first four grades of primary school during this time period
(Luzincourt & Gulbrandson, 2010). The National Plan on Education and Training was
a plan that introduced a shift away from the French education model (Luzincourt &
Gulbrandson, 2010). One of the principle goals of this plan was to ensure that
primary education would be made compulsory and free, neither of which have been
realized to date.
More recently, The Presidential Commission for Education in Haiti, headed by Jacky
Lumarque, rector of Universit Quisqueya, set forth recommendations for the new
national curriculum to outgoing Haitian President Prval and the Ministry of
Education. Post-earthquake, Lumarque redrafted proposals for a National Education
Pact. In doing so he consulted a wide cross-section of parents, teachers, students
and education NGOs on the issue. The primary goals are: 100 percent enrollment of
all school-age children, a free education to all, including textbooks and materials,
and a hot meal daily for each child. Lumarque stated that accelerated teacher
training is essential for this work. The commission traveled throughout the country
asking parents and community leaders what they desired most for their children.

When the national curriculum plan is finalized, all public schools and those private
schools that choose to participate in the education reform plan are expected to
begin utilizing standardized teaching materials in addition to standardized methods
to test students (McNulty, 2011).
In April 2011, Michel Martelly was declared President-elect of Haiti, succeeding
outgoing two-term President Prval. In an April 20, 2011 press conference with US
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, President-elect Martelly remarked on the
priorities he had emphasized during his presidential campaign. He spoke briefly
about his top three priorities, one of which is education (US Department of State,
2011). Five days later, Martelly asked Haitians living abroad to contribute to a new
fund for education. He told reporters that his cabinet intends to create an education
fund that will ensure free primary schooling for Haitian children, (Fletcher, 2011).
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Inter-American Development Bank
In May 2010, the GoH chose the IDB as its main partner in restructuring the
education system and gave it the mandate to work with Haitis Ministry of Education
and the National Education Commission to help institute a major reform
(Bruemmer, 2011). This is a five-year, 4.2 billion USD plan calling for private
schools to become publicly funded, resulting in all children having equal access to a
free education. The plan proposes to have all children enrolled in free education up
to sixth grade by 2015, and ninth grade by 2020 (Bruemmer, 2011). The IDB has
committed 250 million USD of its own grant resources and has pledged to raise an
additional 250 million USD from third-party donors. The IHRC, whose members
include Co-Presidents Prime Minister of Haiti, Jean Max Bellerive and former US
President William Clinton, approved the IDB proposal on August 17, 2010.
The first phase of the plan is to subsidize existing private schools. According to the
plan, the government would pay the salaries of teachers and administrators
participating in the new system (Bruemmer, 2011). In order to participate in this
new system, schools will undergo a certification process to verify the number of
students and staff at their school, after which they will receive funding to upgrade
facilities and purchase education materials (Bruemmer, 2011). This is a first move
towards establishing tracking mechanisms, which are currently non-existent. In
order to remain certified, schools must continue to be compliant with increasingly
demanding standards, including the adoption of a national curriculum, teacher
training and facility improvement programs. The plan will also finance the building
of new schools and the use of school spaces to provide services such as nutrition
and health care (Bruemmer, 2011).
To qualify, schools must be structurally sound, offer free tuition, and must adopt
the new national curriculum, which will include annual student testing and two
years of mandatory training for teachers (IDB, 2010). The goals are to eliminate
low quality, inefficient schools and consolidate many others over time. Currently,
most private schools serve approximately 100 students; yet they have the capacity
for up to 400 (McNulty, 2011). The intention is to eliminate waste and to increase
the productivity and efficiency of the system.

Higher Education
All levels of the education system are highly geographically centralized, especially
that of higher education. Before the earthquake, 139 of Haitis 159 post-secondary
learning institutions were located in Port-au-Prince (INURED, 2010). These included
professional and vocational schools, technical schools and traditional universities. It
should be noted however, that the Ministry of Education is unable to provide an
accurate accounting due to the lack of tracking mechanisms. Of these 159
institutions, 145 were private and of those, only 10 provide accredited education.
INURED reported in their March 2010 Post-Earthquake Assessment of Higher
Education that of the remaining 135 institutions, 67 percent do not have permission
to operate from the governmental Agency of Higher Education and Scientific
Research (INURED, 2010). It is unclear why they are operating without permission
or if permission was sought after. The University of Haiti is the largest institution of
higher education in Haiti. In 2005, it served 15,000 students and employed 800
teachers, which equates to 38 percent of the total number of students enrolled in
higher education in the country (Gosselin & Pierre, 2007). In 2007, MENFP reported
the university population of Haiti to be approximately 40,000 students. Of these
students, 28,000 attended public universities and 12,000 were enrolled in private
institutions (Wolff, 2008).
Universities typically experience a shortage of adequately trained professors,
libraries, textbooks, teaching materials, laboratories, and online resources. There is
also a lack of emphasis on academic research (INURED, 2010). Additionally, there
is an imbalance between student enrollment rates and the number of teachers
hired. Between 1981 and 2005, student enrollments rose from 4,099 to 15,000
(MENJS, 2001). However, the numbers of professors staffed did not meet the
increased demand. During the same time period the number of teachers rose only
from 559 to 700 (US Library of Congress, 1989).
Impact Of The Earthquake
The earthquake severely interrupted education for students nation-wide. It is
estimated that approximately 1.3 million children and youth under 18 were directly
or indirectly affected. Of this population, 700,000 were primary school-age children
between six and 12 years old. However, it is unknown precisely how many
casualties there were in total. What is clear is that the earthquake killed and injured
thousands of students and hundreds of professors and school administrators
(INURED, 2010). Most schools, even if minimally or not structurally affected, were
closed for many months following and it was normative for individuals to refuse to
enter standing buildings, out of fear. More than a year after the earthquake, many
schools remained closed and, in many cases, tents and other semi-permanent
structures have become temporary replacements for damaged or closed schools
(INEE, 2004). By early 2011, more than one million people, approximately 380,000
of whom are children, remained in crowded internally displaced people camps
(UNICEF, 2011).
The Haitian Ministry of Education estimates that the earthquake affected 4,992 (23
percent) of the nations schools. Of these, 3,978 (80 percent) of the schools were

either damaged or destroyed, affecting nearly 50 percent of Haitis total school and
university population, and 90 percent of students in Port-au-Prince (Haiti Special
Envoy to the United Nations, 2008). Higher education institutions were hit
especially hard, with 87 percent gravely damaged or completely demolished
(INURED, 2010). In addition, the Ministry of Education building was completely
destroyed (UNESCO, 2010). The cost of destruction and damage to establishments
at all levels of the education system and to equipment is estimated at 478.9 million
USD (Haiti Government, 2010). Another residual effect has been the number of
children disabled by resulting injuries. Prior to the earthquake, approximately
200,000 children lived with disabilities in Haiti and as a result of the earthquake
many more were injured and are experiencing long-term or permanent disabilities
(UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2010).

Education for a New Asian Milieu

Friday, 17 May 2002
While many Asian values such as devotion to education, frugality,
social cohesion and family solidarity are important in maintaining
social order and economic progress, there are new issues which
the traditional patterns of socialisation and politics have difficulty
in addressing. Calls for creativity and transparency strike at the
roots of mainstream traditional Asian value s; posed as freedom
versus authoritarian values renders the issues intractably
adversarial. The two are of course interrelated and they are
products of the dynamic interplay between emerging modern
culture with freedom and capability to assume responsibili ty, and
automatic deference to authority which is traditional.
The forming of new values has thus to emerge from education. This
means kindergartens, primary schools, secondary schools and
universities and polytechnics. Starting young is most important.
The best teachers must teach the youngest! Acquiring self confidence through doing is the core idea. This is to be followed by
reflection and theorising and then doing again. Learning this way is
fun, exciting and relevant. The individual gets a sense of
achievement and personal progress. This is most important.
Education Environment for a New Milieu
Thus, the new education has not only to engender new knowledge,
it has also to shape new Asian values. In this regard, the new
education is indeed the making of a new milieu, albeit in
microcosm. It is thus suggested that a campus -town is the most
desirable form as test-bed. The campus-town should be a place
where community and school interacts; where learning is linked to
life; where parents actively participat e in educating their children
even while they pursue their careers. It is thus proposed that the

learning zone is the heart of the township providing intellectual,

aesthetic and moral stimulus so that working, living and playing are
integrated into learning. This is the prototype of the information
age. In the 21 s t Century milieu, the quality of the question is as
important as finding the right answers.
Educational Philosophy
The educational philosophy revolves around two sets of ideas: The
5Es and the 5Cs. The 5Es are: Empowerment, Ethics, Economics,
Environment and aEsthetics. All the Es are intertwined
pedagogically. Empowerment should never be without ethics.
Empowerment is therefore always towards achieving some social
good. Therefore empowerment has conscience. Economics is thus
also infused with concern for the environment. AEsthetic sensibility
is a key in the opening up of the intellect, the intuition and the
senses, and thus the human spirit is liberated through direct
responses rather than through iconic substitution and symbolic
ritual as is usually the case.
Thus teachers and students should be empowered through
carefully contextualised project-driven learning situations. A new
culture of trust and adventure arises from successful risking and
sharing. These are seldom incorporated into education strategies.
Yet these are key strategies to make life and learning concrete and
exciting. Ethics will be thus realised not as abstract values but as
experientially validated convictions for the individual . Concern for
the environment is, in like manner, experienced as a shared value
and therefore becomes a personal ethic. AEsthetics is realised as
joyful sensing of the sensual, the ethical and the coherence
inherent in good ideas.
The 5Cs are: Competence, Confidence, Courage, Conscience &
Compassion and Creativity & Imagination. These grow sequentially
and spiral outwards in ever widening cycles. Information
acquisition in the Information Age is no longer the principal focus,
the good question is. To ask the deep question, Courage and
Creativity are necessary. These, in turn, are derived from a
confidence that is founded on competence. Real courage comes
from real competence. Conversely, false courage comes from false
confidence. And conscience is vital too. This comes from the
courage to heed the deep small voice and not set it aside for fear.
Thus the 5Cs are interlinked and together they constitute the key
strategy, enjoining learning to personality. The internalisation of
knowledge is thus dependent on ch aracter formation. This is the
key to releasing innate human propensity for ethical relationship
and creativity in the world. Education has to recognise this central
fact.