ARTICLE - TAX FUNDING FREE EDUCATION?

PRESIDENT'S TAX ON DIASPORA IS NOT FUNDING FREE EDUCATION
(Defend Haiti) -

PORT-AU-PRINCE - In a radio interview on December 29th, the National Palace education adviser admitted that none of the money collected through a tax on international calls and money transfers is being used towards education in Haiti.

President Michel Martelly's National Fund for Education (FNE) was launched in May 2011 with the aims of collecting $8.5 million [US] per month by excising international phone calls at 5 cents per minute and attaching a fee to international money transfers at $1.50 per transfer.

Since the launch of the FNE, the estimated $60 million [US] expected to be in the government's account for education has not been found.

In a meeting with the Senate Finance Committee in December, the Governor of the Bank of the Republic of Haiti said that $4.8 million [US] was in the FNE; .... that no withdrawals had been made from the fund, ... and that this only accounted for money collected through the $1.50[US] fee on transfers.

The government of Haiti has spent an unprecedented amount of money on a campaign of misinformation. Radio and television commercials, billboards and even in the speeches of President Martelly, have claimed that nearly a million children are attending school for free.

The National Palace Adviser on Education, Dimitri Nau, was asked on Magik 9 Radio, owned by Le Nouvelliste , to state the facts.

Nau said that 903,000 students are attending school for free but had to note that about 490,000 of these students had already been attending free schools through the government's national school system, which was long established before the FNE.

The government justifies the 490,000 children as part of their count of students attending school for free because their registration fees of 100 to 200 HTG ($2.50 - $5.00[US]) per year, were waived. It is important to note that these fees were waived by the initiative of the Bill Clinton Foundation which granted the government $2.5 million [US] for the subsidy. The national schools have claimed that they have not received any compensation for the loss of the registration fees.

The other 400,000 students are benefiting from an Education for All program launched by the World Bank and other international banks. In December, the World Bank alone put roughly $70 million [US] towards the Education for All Project that accounts for the education of 175,000 students.

The Haitian education system has struggled with the president's free education plan. School directors have not been able to pay teachers, buy classroom materials and are considering ending school lunch programs.

Dimitri Nau does not know how much money is in the FNE or where the money is but claims that a lack of a legal framework for the FNE prevents the Ministry of Education from using the funds. In the meantime, funds in the National Treasury from the Education for All program and loans from the National Bank of Credit are the ministry's plans for surviving the deficit.

"The funds come exclusively from the Treasury and are part of the budget extended through a new budget line," Nau revealed.

Nau says that there is a deficiency in the amount and quality of teachers to support the program. "Only 15% of 62,000 teachers of the system have adequate capacity," he lamented.