Rebuilding Haiti’s Schools

Haiti’s First Lady Elisabeth Delatour Preval discusses reconstructing the country's shattered education system at GW.

March 15, 2010

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Elisabeth Preval First Lady of Haiti at Priorites for Education in Post-Earthquake Haiti Symposium

By Jennifer Price

During a visit to her alma mater, First Lady of Haiti Elisabeth Delatour Preval addressed the urgency around rebuilding the country’s education system after January’s catastrophic earthquake. Ms. Preval was at GW for a symposium on the future of Haiti’s education system, which also included Haiti’s Minister of Education Joel Desrosiers Jean-Pierre, who announced the country’s goal of getting its children back in school by the first week of April.

The 7.0 magnitude earthquake completely destroyed 4,000 schools, making it impossible for 1.5 million children to return to their studies.

“Most of us prefer to believe that we are still in a nightmare. That the horrible images of kids trapped in the concrete, the masses of bodies accumulated along the streets, will vanish once we wake up,” said Ms. Preval, who received her Master of Business Administration from The George Washington University in 1988. “But it is a nightmare that lasts.”

Ms. Preval’s motivation to reconstruct the school system was reinforced by an encounter she had during a tour of a Haitian hospital with a 13-year-old Haitian boy in the Dominican Republic just days after the earthquake. The boy, whose name was Peter Stevenson, had already lost one leg in the earthquake, and now he was on his way to surgery, where he faced the possibility of losing his other leg.

“When I asked him what I could do for him, the answer came as a shock wave to me. ‘Please, madam, promise me that you will help me go back to school’,” Ms. Preval said to a standing-room-only audience at GW’s Elliot School of International Affairs. “In my opinion, Peter Stevenson speaks to the whole Haitian population. There’s such a great demand for education in the country.”

Returning to school will help restore a somewhat of a normal life for Haiti’s children, Ms. Preval said.

“The school environment…gives the students a better chance to socialize, to receive psycho-social attention, to receive food and health care,” she said.

While the earthquake caused 1.5 million children to be displaced from their schools, 500,000 school-aged children were already not receiving an education before the earthquake because of the severe poverty in Haiti. About 76 percent of Haitians are living below the poverty level, with less than $2 a day.

“It was already unacceptable before January 12,” she said.

Before becoming an economic adviser to the Haitian government in 2006, Ms. Preval had worked for more than five years as a financial specialist in road infrastructure and power generation, specializing in project financing and financial monitoring. She also has more than 10 years of experience in Haiti’s commercial banking system.

In order to educate all Haitian children, Ms. Preval wants the Haitian government to create a free public school system. Currently, 82 percent of children enrolled in school attend private schools, which vary greatly in their quality and curriculum.

“This will be our first demonstration for the dignity and respect for the Haitian community, and the pain that has been brewing since January 12,” she said.

But establishing a free public education system will require funding and technical assistance from the international community.

“We cannot get out of the situation by ourselves. That is why the help of experienced people…can be useful to us,” she said.

GW President Steven Knapp thanked Ms. Preval for guiding GW’s participation in its Haiti relief and recovery efforts.

“She has personally helped…to harness the passion of our students, the expertise of our faculty and the collective engagement of our entire university community,” he said.

Ms. Preval said it was a natural reaction for her to turn to GW for assistance after the earthquake.

“George Washington University is a wealth of expertise and knowledge…we really want to learn from you and have you help us find a way to be able to re-launch the education system in Haiti, which is currently completely destroyed,” she said.

Ms. Preval said in the future, university students across the U.S. can help Haiti by traveling to the country and teaching or helping create a national curriculum.

After Ms. Preval’s initial remarks, Mr. Jean-Pierre discussed the country’s plan for rebuilding its education system. The goal of getting children back in school by the first week of April will require creating temporary classrooms until structural damages can be repaired or new schools can be built.

The country is also faced with finding new teachers and ensuring they are qualified. Since the earthquake, more than 500 teachers are unaccounted for. And before the earthquake, less than 30 percent of Haiti’s teachers had the minimum qualifications to teach.

“We have a rare opportunity to bring about positive and enduring change for Haiti’s youth and their future,” said GW Provost and Vice President for Health Affairs John F. Williams, M.D. ’79, Ed.D. ’96.

Another key component to Haiti’s plan is ensuring that the 500,000 children not enrolled in school before the earthquake have the chance to be educated. To achieve this, Mr. Jean-Pierre said new schools will need to be created in rural areas.

“We have to take advantage of what happened on January 12 and give an equal opportunity to all children,” he said.

Paul Vallas, superintendent of the Recovery School District in New Orleans and a panelist for the Haiti symposium at GW, said after Hurricane Katrina, the city didn’t rebuild its old education system. Instead, it built a new one.

Mr. Vallas initiated a standardized curriculum, an extended school day and school year and more technology in the classroom including interactive white boards and laptops for all teachers and some high school students.

The third panelist, Christina Wedekull, head of the director general office at the Swedish International Development Agency, discussed how to coordinate with donors after a disaster. Ms. Wedekull coordinated the Swedish post-tsunami relief efforts in Indonesia.

“When there’s lots of money coming in, there’s always a race between speed and quality,” she said. “But we need to…build back better.”

In addition to hosting the symposium, GW has been actively engaged in Haiti relief efforts on campus and on the ground in Haiti since the earthquake.

Just 24 hours after the earthquake, Anthony MacIntyre and Bruno Petinaux, both physicians at George Washington’s Department of Emergency Medicine; Joseph Barbera, a professor of emergency medicine and engineering; and Scott Schermerhorn, B.S. ’07, a technician with Fairfax County Fire and Rescue and a GW master’s student, traveled to Haiti as members of the Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue team. The team, which is made up of physicians, structural engineers and other emergency personnel, found 16 individuals.

A team of GW Medical Center faculty and administrators, including Joseph Reum, interim dean for the School of Public Health and Health Sciences, recently returned from Haiti, where it surveyed current conditions, assessed how GW resources could be best deployed and provided medical care.

GW students have raised more than $9,000 for disaster relief and organized a candlelight vigil and letter writing event.

GW is also working to organize a “Haiti Day” event with the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area and the D.C. government. The purpose of “Haiti Day” is to help people understand the history of Haiti, the relationship between Haiti and the U.S. and the future of Haiti. GW will host a series of events and panels that include individuals who have been to Haiti during the crisis and experts from schools across the university.

“While it will surely take a great deal of time, energy and resources for Haiti to recover from this devastating earthquake that struck just a short while ago, this is a new and rare opportunity for the government and the people of Haiti to address their developmental challenges with renewed vigor and a strong sense of purpose,” said Dr. Williams.