ARTICLE - 100 MOTORCYCLES - EDUCATION

100 MOTORCYCLES AT THE SERVICE OF EDUCATION
(Haiti Libre) -

President Michel Martelly, proceeded, this Thursday, March 15, to the delivery of one hundred motorcycles to the ten departmental directors of the Ministry of National Education and Vocational Training (MENFP), at the rate of ten motorcycles for each department. This equipment, intended for the zone inspectors, was offered with financial support from the World Bank, to allow a better supervision of schools throughout the country.

The ceremony was held in the presence, among others, of Reginald Paul, the Minister of Education, Pierre Michel Laguerre, Director General, the Special Envoy of the World Bank in Haiti, Alexandre Abrantes and officers from the department of education.

The Head of State said in his speech "...it is a great pleasure to be here, to participate in this ceremony of distribution of 100 motorcycles [...] the idea of ​​sending all children to school is one thing, but there is a mechanism to ensure that what they learn is what needs to be learned[...] To ensure that the work is well done, it is necessary that there are reports, and that the inspectors of zones play this role, the role of a relay, the role of a gateway between schools that are dispersed throughout the country,.... by inspecting and ensuring that the level of education is there, .... that the children come to school, and that the food is there [...] It is only the beginning, the rest comes after..."

President Martelly has addressed his thanks to the World Bank and to the Ministry of National Education and Vocational Training to understand the need to supervise the inspectors of school districts. He asks them to ensure proper management of these materials, which are in fact insufficient for all inspectors. The school district offices, numbering 70 and subdivided into 450 zone inspectors, are responsible for the management of these motorcycles.

Minister Réginald Paul stressed that "...these are the inspectors of zones that go into schools to provide supervision, to support the schools to help improve the educational services that they provide to children [...] The observations that we make [...] is that many of these schools are in remote environments, and that it was necessary to support these offices, helping them to reach these schools with much more ease. It is in this sense that we planned, the acquisition of 100 motorcycles, to begin to facilitate this supervision [...] Now, we will specifically ask the departmental director to solicit from the inspectors of zones, a performance plan, where they will be able to inform us of the use of these materials [...]"

The special envoy of the World Bank, Mr. Alexander Abruntes has indicated "...we prepared a project 'Education for All' to support you in this program. It has already been approved at a cost of $70 million, [...] We think that this amount will allow to finance the education costs for 235,000 children, and provide a hot meal to 73,000 children per day. But it is not enough...., we must put children in school, and also ensure the quality of what is happening in the school [...] we must invest in the quality of teachers and in their supervision. The role of supervisors is absolutely essential, and it is through the improvement of working conditions of supervisors that we are giving these motorcycles [...] 100 motorcycles is a start, we will give as many as you need ..."