Education Nationale released the exam results today for the 6eme AF exams. These exams need to be passed in order to qualify to move up to secondary school. We had a 100% pass rate here at Coram Deo. Praise the Lord! Josue Marcelin did a great job teaching this year. The students who wrote these exams did 2 years of education in one year and they came through perfectly. Yvens was in 5eme AF at Adoration Christian School and studied here at Coram Deo in his spare time for the 6eme AF. He too passed and now jumps ahead of his Adoration classmates :) Manu is a student at Christian Light Ministries and he passed as well. You can't get any better than 100%. We are going to hold a celebratory party. I'll post photos of all our graduates! It sure is good to give good news!
Karen
Showing posts with label ARTICLE - EDUCATION. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ARTICLE - EDUCATION. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
ARTICLE - IDEAS FOR UNIVERSITIES
IDEAS FOR OUR UNIVERSITIES
(Haiti Libre) -
Executives of Haitian Universities have recently participated in a seminar in Barcelona, as part of a training program in university management, established by the Catalan Association of Public Universities (ACUP), and the University Consortium Laval, of Ottawa, Moncton and Sherbrooke (LOMS).
This seminar is the fourth of this program, launched in February 2012, with funding from the Spanish foundation Obra Social La Caixa and the Open Society Foundations (OSF), the network of foundations of which Fokal is part.
During this training, participants discussed, inter alia, the influence of the Bologna process on European universities, the importance of the syllabus in academic management, and the regionalization of university resources; such as libraries and research centers... The Universities of the ACUP presented to their Haitian colleagues, their strategy to boost education,research, community service and universal function. These universities have put forward a vision of a University as a development center in the community where it is placed.
In addition to funding provided by the state, these universities go in search of other sources of income, which stimulate not only the advancement of knowledge but also the advancement of communities. For example, universities create research centers that can receive independent funding and be "incubators" for new development of a new product, which can be patented and marketed with the support of teachers. Profits from the sale of these products is shared with the universities.
The vision of the Association of Universities of Catalonia has raised many questions from participants. This visit will certainly be a key step in the future of Haitian universities, because the imagination of rectors, vice rectors and other officials, has been greatly stimulated.
Learn more about the Bologna Process:
The Bologna Process is an agreement between the European Universities on the structure of university education, and the equivalence between programs of different countries that facilitates exchanges between universities.
(Haiti Libre) -
Executives of Haitian Universities have recently participated in a seminar in Barcelona, as part of a training program in university management, established by the Catalan Association of Public Universities (ACUP), and the University Consortium Laval, of Ottawa, Moncton and Sherbrooke (LOMS).
This seminar is the fourth of this program, launched in February 2012, with funding from the Spanish foundation Obra Social La Caixa and the Open Society Foundations (OSF), the network of foundations of which Fokal is part.
During this training, participants discussed, inter alia, the influence of the Bologna process on European universities, the importance of the syllabus in academic management, and the regionalization of university resources; such as libraries and research centers... The Universities of the ACUP presented to their Haitian colleagues, their strategy to boost education,research, community service and universal function. These universities have put forward a vision of a University as a development center in the community where it is placed.
In addition to funding provided by the state, these universities go in search of other sources of income, which stimulate not only the advancement of knowledge but also the advancement of communities. For example, universities create research centers that can receive independent funding and be "incubators" for new development of a new product, which can be patented and marketed with the support of teachers. Profits from the sale of these products is shared with the universities.
The vision of the Association of Universities of Catalonia has raised many questions from participants. This visit will certainly be a key step in the future of Haitian universities, because the imagination of rectors, vice rectors and other officials, has been greatly stimulated.
Learn more about the Bologna Process:
The Bologna Process is an agreement between the European Universities on the structure of university education, and the equivalence between programs of different countries that facilitates exchanges between universities.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
ARTICLE - MODERNIZATION OF VOC. TRAINING
MODERNISATION OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING
(Haiti Libre) -
Included in the cooperation agreement signed on 1 July 2010 by the Ministers of Education of Haiti and France, with co-signatories of the Schneider Foundation, Quisqueya University, and the NGOs "Aide et Action", "Jules Verne Mission"; aims to support the effort to modernize vocational education in Haiti, and to support the National Institute of Vocational Training (INFP) and the Secretariat of State to vocational training, in their efforts to restructure training in the building trades.
Professors of the "Jules Verne Mission" since August 2010 have ensured all the logistics of the program, as well as the coordination of interventions in Haiti, and with Aide et Action in Paris, taking care to raise funds and a support to companies and institutional partners.
After one year [2010-2011], which allowed a thorough analysis of the building trades in Haiti, of training facilities and of most of the vocational training centers recognized by the INFP, a reprioritisation of the project was made in anticipation of the possibility of creating in Haiti a resource center of excellence for building trades.
Meanwhile, specialists of the INFP conducted an overhaul of curricula and certification procedures, to ensure that people and businesses can make use of well trained, and skilled craftsmen. It is in this spirit that the INFP is currently testing, at two vocational training centers in the metropolitan area, a renovated and refocused curricula that allows firstly, that young motivated apprentices can obtain a Certificate of Professional Skills (CAP) in four months [500 hours of training] and secondly, that businesses or individuals, can rely on well-trained youth, having already been able to practice their trade in school, and who have had regular tests.
On 25 June 2012, Ms. Marina Gourgue, the Secretary of State for Vocational Training, godmother of the first three promotions of apprentices, will present the diplomas of State to 58 young people who have passed the examinations. They will also receive from the representative of the French Ministry of Education, a training certificate validated by all program partners. Mr. Jean-Paul Créantor, the teacher of electrical engineering, will present moreover to the electricians, a training certificate from the Schneider Electric Company, which validated the curriculum and assessment. One specific feature of this training is indeed to combine theoretical work in the classroom, practice in a workshop or on the field, to practice the continuous monitoring, two exams during training, and a final exam.
The professors from "Jules Verne", and their Haitian colleagues, are particularly pleased to have interested several Haitian businesses (construction companies and suppliers) to these courses: Deatrel, Promobois (Rouzier), Poitevien, LCI, Alliance Distribution, Batimat, Ekodepot, Eccomar, Saint Eloi, Berelec. These companies have agreed to make an intervention for the youth on Saturdays or giving work to be done to apprentices as part of their training. Three of them, the companies Berelec, Eccomar and Poitevien will welcome as an internship a few graduates from the month of July. This recognition by Haitian professionals of the quality of innovative training set up by the INFP is a decisive step towards a win-win partnership between school/enterprise and has been a source of great pride for the Haitian teachers at the Vocational Training Centres of Carrefour, and at Varreux and for the young people in training, who value the attention they receive from these specialists.
Several companies, public and para-public organizations, and NGOs are also interested in this program, which is particularly creative and inclusive and some have even brought a co-funding: ADEME, Agency for Environment and energy management based in Paris ,the "Liège aide à Haïti" association, "Entrepreneurs sans frontières", "Première urgence", "Library Without Borders", FIDESCO, APEFE, Water for All, DIGICEL, Energy Without Borders, and several donors such as IDB, UNESCO, the Swiss and the Spanish Cooperation. "Jules Verne" will soon install a center rebuilt by the IDB in Gonaïves and an Electrotechnical workshop, of which the teaching equipment have been fabricated by apprentices in Carrefour.
The objective of the two Ministries is to be able o inject rapidly each year into the labor market, well trained citizens who are respectful of the standards and can participate with dedication and competence, in the reconstruction of the country and quickly become economically independent.
The French Ministry of National Education, which signed in May 2012, a renewable partnership of five years with the MENFP hopes to contribute significantly, by a peer to peer support, in the rebuilding of Haiti's educational system, and a curricula for vocational training. This partnership is based on professional relations of confidence, aiming to support the inspectors, school heads and teachers who want to improve the quality of training they give to young Haitians, and train generations of responsible citizens, who are capable and proud to contribute to the development of their country.
Next year two new workshops will be operational, which will train nearly 400 young people in three departments (West, North East and Artibonite) and new workshops will be installed in 2013 in five centers built by INFP, with Haitian funds.
President Michel Martelly inaugurated on June 23, the first two rehabilitated and equipped workshops under this Franco-Haitian program, and expressed satisfaction with the good results, validated by the INFP. He desires a strengthening of the system established by the French Ministry of Education, within the Haitian Ministry.
(Haiti Libre) -
Included in the cooperation agreement signed on 1 July 2010 by the Ministers of Education of Haiti and France, with co-signatories of the Schneider Foundation, Quisqueya University, and the NGOs "Aide et Action", "Jules Verne Mission"; aims to support the effort to modernize vocational education in Haiti, and to support the National Institute of Vocational Training (INFP) and the Secretariat of State to vocational training, in their efforts to restructure training in the building trades.
Professors of the "Jules Verne Mission" since August 2010 have ensured all the logistics of the program, as well as the coordination of interventions in Haiti, and with Aide et Action in Paris, taking care to raise funds and a support to companies and institutional partners.
After one year [2010-2011], which allowed a thorough analysis of the building trades in Haiti, of training facilities and of most of the vocational training centers recognized by the INFP, a reprioritisation of the project was made in anticipation of the possibility of creating in Haiti a resource center of excellence for building trades.
Meanwhile, specialists of the INFP conducted an overhaul of curricula and certification procedures, to ensure that people and businesses can make use of well trained, and skilled craftsmen. It is in this spirit that the INFP is currently testing, at two vocational training centers in the metropolitan area, a renovated and refocused curricula that allows firstly, that young motivated apprentices can obtain a Certificate of Professional Skills (CAP) in four months [500 hours of training] and secondly, that businesses or individuals, can rely on well-trained youth, having already been able to practice their trade in school, and who have had regular tests.
On 25 June 2012, Ms. Marina Gourgue, the Secretary of State for Vocational Training, godmother of the first three promotions of apprentices, will present the diplomas of State to 58 young people who have passed the examinations. They will also receive from the representative of the French Ministry of Education, a training certificate validated by all program partners. Mr. Jean-Paul Créantor, the teacher of electrical engineering, will present moreover to the electricians, a training certificate from the Schneider Electric Company, which validated the curriculum and assessment. One specific feature of this training is indeed to combine theoretical work in the classroom, practice in a workshop or on the field, to practice the continuous monitoring, two exams during training, and a final exam.
The professors from "Jules Verne", and their Haitian colleagues, are particularly pleased to have interested several Haitian businesses (construction companies and suppliers) to these courses: Deatrel, Promobois (Rouzier), Poitevien, LCI, Alliance Distribution, Batimat, Ekodepot, Eccomar, Saint Eloi, Berelec. These companies have agreed to make an intervention for the youth on Saturdays or giving work to be done to apprentices as part of their training. Three of them, the companies Berelec, Eccomar and Poitevien will welcome as an internship a few graduates from the month of July. This recognition by Haitian professionals of the quality of innovative training set up by the INFP is a decisive step towards a win-win partnership between school/enterprise and has been a source of great pride for the Haitian teachers at the Vocational Training Centres of Carrefour, and at Varreux and for the young people in training, who value the attention they receive from these specialists.
Several companies, public and para-public organizations, and NGOs are also interested in this program, which is particularly creative and inclusive and some have even brought a co-funding: ADEME, Agency for Environment and energy management based in Paris ,the "Liège aide à Haïti" association, "Entrepreneurs sans frontières", "Première urgence", "Library Without Borders", FIDESCO, APEFE, Water for All, DIGICEL, Energy Without Borders, and several donors such as IDB, UNESCO, the Swiss and the Spanish Cooperation. "Jules Verne" will soon install a center rebuilt by the IDB in Gonaïves and an Electrotechnical workshop, of which the teaching equipment have been fabricated by apprentices in Carrefour.
The objective of the two Ministries is to be able o inject rapidly each year into the labor market, well trained citizens who are respectful of the standards and can participate with dedication and competence, in the reconstruction of the country and quickly become economically independent.
The French Ministry of National Education, which signed in May 2012, a renewable partnership of five years with the MENFP hopes to contribute significantly, by a peer to peer support, in the rebuilding of Haiti's educational system, and a curricula for vocational training. This partnership is based on professional relations of confidence, aiming to support the inspectors, school heads and teachers who want to improve the quality of training they give to young Haitians, and train generations of responsible citizens, who are capable and proud to contribute to the development of their country.
Next year two new workshops will be operational, which will train nearly 400 young people in three departments (West, North East and Artibonite) and new workshops will be installed in 2013 in five centers built by INFP, with Haitian funds.
President Michel Martelly inaugurated on June 23, the first two rehabilitated and equipped workshops under this Franco-Haitian program, and expressed satisfaction with the good results, validated by the INFP. He desires a strengthening of the system established by the French Ministry of Education, within the Haitian Ministry.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
ARTICLE - FREE SCHOOLING FOR 250,000
FREE SCHOOLING FOR NEARLY 250,000 CHILDREN!
(Haiti Libre) -
Thursday, President Michel Martelly who was in Mirebalais for the traditional feast of Saint Louis has announced that for the next school year, nearly 250,000 students will have access to school for free!
The Head of State explained that the Haitian government, will support 100,000 additional students, who are already in the education system and that the latter will have free access to 200 schools in Port-au-Prince.
This brings to 246,000 the total number of students who will benefit from free schooling from October 5.
President Martelly said that in addition to his priorities, cholera and education, the negotiations to reach consensus in the Senate for the next designation of a Prime Minister, continue, stating that the groups, majority and minority, of the Senate, had met together on this issue, at their own initiative.
(Haiti Libre) -
Thursday, President Michel Martelly who was in Mirebalais for the traditional feast of Saint Louis has announced that for the next school year, nearly 250,000 students will have access to school for free!
The Head of State explained that the Haitian government, will support 100,000 additional students, who are already in the education system and that the latter will have free access to 200 schools in Port-au-Prince.
This brings to 246,000 the total number of students who will benefit from free schooling from October 5.
President Martelly said that in addition to his priorities, cholera and education, the negotiations to reach consensus in the Senate for the next designation of a Prime Minister, continue, stating that the groups, majority and minority, of the Senate, had met together on this issue, at their own initiative.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
ARTICLE - HIBERNIA - TRAIN 5,000 TEACHERS
HIBERNIA COLLEGE PLANNING TO TRAIN 5,000 TEACHERS IN HAITI
(Irish Independent) - By Siobhan Creaton
Hibernia College, the online education institute that trains national teachers in Ireland, is chasing new opportunities abroad and is preparing to train up to 5,000 teachers in Haiti over the next two years.
The college, founded by Dr Sean Rowland in 1999, has more than 7,000 students in 30 countries and is increasingly focusing on overseas expansion opportunities.
Dr Rowland, who has been working to develop the National Institute for Teacher Education in Haiti for more than three years, hopes it will shortly begin to recruit between 3,000 and 5,000 teachers to train them in a newly developed programme due to start this autumn.
"We presented the final blueprint to the government last week" he said.
It will target teachers who are already in schools in an effort to improve the quality of education in Haiti through a specially devised programme devised by Haitians in association with Hibernia that will be taught in French and Creole.
Microsoft and Hewlett Packard are offering technical assistance so that the teachers can participate in the programmes. Funds to support their training have been pledged by international donors such as the International American Development Bank, the World Bank and Denis O'Brien's mobile phone company Digicel.
Hibernia, which has an office in London, trains teachers in every county in the UK and has also won an EU-wide bid to provide education programmes across Europe.
"We need to look at how Irish educational institutions can work more closely with international partners and not rely so heavily on government as it doesn't have the money" he said.
It is training teachers in South Africa and is rolling out a new pharma-training programme out of Switzerland.
(Irish Independent) - By Siobhan Creaton
Hibernia College, the online education institute that trains national teachers in Ireland, is chasing new opportunities abroad and is preparing to train up to 5,000 teachers in Haiti over the next two years.
The college, founded by Dr Sean Rowland in 1999, has more than 7,000 students in 30 countries and is increasingly focusing on overseas expansion opportunities.
Dr Rowland, who has been working to develop the National Institute for Teacher Education in Haiti for more than three years, hopes it will shortly begin to recruit between 3,000 and 5,000 teachers to train them in a newly developed programme due to start this autumn.
"We presented the final blueprint to the government last week" he said.
It will target teachers who are already in schools in an effort to improve the quality of education in Haiti through a specially devised programme devised by Haitians in association with Hibernia that will be taught in French and Creole.
Microsoft and Hewlett Packard are offering technical assistance so that the teachers can participate in the programmes. Funds to support their training have been pledged by international donors such as the International American Development Bank, the World Bank and Denis O'Brien's mobile phone company Digicel.
Hibernia, which has an office in London, trains teachers in every county in the UK and has also won an EU-wide bid to provide education programmes across Europe.
"We need to look at how Irish educational institutions can work more closely with international partners and not rely so heavily on government as it doesn't have the money" he said.
It is training teachers in South Africa and is rolling out a new pharma-training programme out of Switzerland.
Monday, August 16, 2010
ARTICLE - EDUCATION
HAITI'S SCHOOLS
(New York Times) - Editorial
A plan to build a new education system in Haiti is one of the most encouraging things to emerge from the rubble of the Jan. 12 earthquake. It is expected to be endorsed at a meeting on Tuesday of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, the joint Haitian-international body created to guide the country’s rebuilding.
Talk and promises have been far more abundant than visible improvements in the lives of struggling Haitians. After a frustratingly slow start, the commission is finally confronting a range of urgent issues, including housing and debris removal. It is right that this meeting — only its second — is immediately tackling education reform head-on, since the current system’s failures are at the root of the country’s thwarted potential.
Nearly all primary schools in Haiti today are private; parents, eager to give their children a better life, pay dearly. Judging from Haiti’s high illiteracy and dropout rates and dire lack of qualified teachers, the system needs a complete overhaul.
The plan to reinvent the education sector is hugely ambitious but relatively simple. It does not try to build entirely from scratch — many schools will still be privately run. But the government, with international help, will provide generous subsidies to parents who choose to send their children to schools that accept new layers of oversight and accountability, including government accreditation, a modernized national curriculum and teacher retraining. These schools will also have to be certified as structurally sound.
The goal is to provide universal free or nearly-free education for kindergarten through 12th grades in accredited schools, with eventual government financing. The full transformation is expected to take 20 years.
The first, five-year phase is expected to cost $500 million. Half of that would come from the Inter-American Development Bank, which has helped design the program. The rest is expected to come from other donors. The plan is to build at least 625 new primary schools and triple the number of publicly financed schools. It would also retrain 90 percent of the country’s teaching force — 50,000 people — to teach the new curriculum, and it would train 2,500 new teachers a year, many through a program patterned on Teach for America.
Outside experts have helped develop the plan, including Paul Vallas, who brought ambitious school reforms to Chicago and post-Katrina New Orleans. Their expertise is needed and appreciated. But advisers also stress that the plan, which builds on a reform process begun by the government before the quake, has the full endorsement of President René Préval. We are glad to see Mr. Préval finally engaged.
Eight months after the quake, the list of things that need to be fixed in Haiti is dauntingly, disturbingly long. Indeed, there are still more than one million people who are displaced and need homes. This education plan, built with a constructive mix of homegrown initiative and outside help, should be a model for moving other desperately needed projects forward. There is no time to waste.
(New York Times) - Editorial
A plan to build a new education system in Haiti is one of the most encouraging things to emerge from the rubble of the Jan. 12 earthquake. It is expected to be endorsed at a meeting on Tuesday of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, the joint Haitian-international body created to guide the country’s rebuilding.
Talk and promises have been far more abundant than visible improvements in the lives of struggling Haitians. After a frustratingly slow start, the commission is finally confronting a range of urgent issues, including housing and debris removal. It is right that this meeting — only its second — is immediately tackling education reform head-on, since the current system’s failures are at the root of the country’s thwarted potential.
Nearly all primary schools in Haiti today are private; parents, eager to give their children a better life, pay dearly. Judging from Haiti’s high illiteracy and dropout rates and dire lack of qualified teachers, the system needs a complete overhaul.
The plan to reinvent the education sector is hugely ambitious but relatively simple. It does not try to build entirely from scratch — many schools will still be privately run. But the government, with international help, will provide generous subsidies to parents who choose to send their children to schools that accept new layers of oversight and accountability, including government accreditation, a modernized national curriculum and teacher retraining. These schools will also have to be certified as structurally sound.
The goal is to provide universal free or nearly-free education for kindergarten through 12th grades in accredited schools, with eventual government financing. The full transformation is expected to take 20 years.
The first, five-year phase is expected to cost $500 million. Half of that would come from the Inter-American Development Bank, which has helped design the program. The rest is expected to come from other donors. The plan is to build at least 625 new primary schools and triple the number of publicly financed schools. It would also retrain 90 percent of the country’s teaching force — 50,000 people — to teach the new curriculum, and it would train 2,500 new teachers a year, many through a program patterned on Teach for America.
Outside experts have helped develop the plan, including Paul Vallas, who brought ambitious school reforms to Chicago and post-Katrina New Orleans. Their expertise is needed and appreciated. But advisers also stress that the plan, which builds on a reform process begun by the government before the quake, has the full endorsement of President René Préval. We are glad to see Mr. Préval finally engaged.
Eight months after the quake, the list of things that need to be fixed in Haiti is dauntingly, disturbingly long. Indeed, there are still more than one million people who are displaced and need homes. This education plan, built with a constructive mix of homegrown initiative and outside help, should be a model for moving other desperately needed projects forward. There is no time to waste.
Monday, May 31, 2010
ARTICLE - EDUCATION
ONLINE ENGLISH CLASSES HELP HAITIANS RECOVER
(Los Angeles Times) - By Ken Ellingwood
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti Two dozen Haitian students manage a ragged unison in their stab at English.
"Today we go to school," they pronounce, more or less as one. Their instructor approves and gives the next cue.
"In school I will learn to write."
"In school I will learn to write," the students echo.
"The teacher will help me."
"The teacher will help me," the Haitians offer in return.
On this day, the teacher, Justin Purnell, sits 1,300 miles away in Asheville. The students are packed into a bare-bones classroom in Port-au-Prince, watching and answering via video on a laptop computer propped in front of them. The steamy air carries the whine of a generator running in the makeshift tent camp outside.
The adult students, some of whom have lived in tents since the Jan. 12 earthquake, are studying English as part of a fledgling project that uses Internet technology, faraway volunteer teachers, donated laptops and an earthquake-themed storybook written especially for the Haitians.
The long-distance English classes are the brainchild of Justin's father, Karl Purnell, a 76-year-old author and former journalist who has used the Internet and video hookups to teach young people in Nepal.
The elder Purnell brought his project, which he calls Teach the World Online, to Haiti in February. He got involved after a longtime friend and fellow journalist, Jurate Kazickas, suggested that he hop a flight there with her husband, Roger Altman, a former deputy Treasury secretary who was flying in supplies for quake victims.
"The next day I was on the way with two laptops, not having any idea if they had broadband," Purnell said by telephone from his home in Mifflinburg, Pa.
Internet service in Haiti was by then restored, and the remaining question was whether to teach English or French. Camp dwellers answered it.
"They said, 'Please teach us English,'" Purnell said.
A tool for recovery
Haiti is a Creole-speaking former colony of France, but English has also mattered, given the history of U.S. interventions and involvement here, and because 800,000 Haitians and their descendants live in the United States. Anglophone pop artists such as 50 Cent are big in Haiti, though few Haitians speak English fluently.
The aftermath of the earthquake has drawn legions of foreign aid workers, religious volunteers, contractors, journalists and others, and English often sounds like the unofficial language of the international relief and rebuilding effort, which is expected to last for years.
Many Haitians say mastering English may offer the best path to getting back on their feet.
So far, 150 people have joined the video English classes, which are free and held in three locations: next to the improvised tent camp; in the earthquake-cracked home of Purnell's Haitian assistant, Stanley Simon; and in a sprawling slum called Cite Soleil.
The project offers learning when many schools and universities remain closed and countless workplaces lie in ruins. Forty people showed up for one recent class, more than triple the target size. The classes have attracted some teenagers, but most of the students so far are older than 20.
Patrick Etienne, 24, said he would like to learn English so he can land a job with an international aid agency.
Emmanuella Fortunat, a 21-year-old college student attending her first class, needed only rudimentary English to explain why she was there.
"For finding job," she said. "A good job."
Technological snags
The class textbook, "A New House in Haiti," is a fictional story about a Haitian family that lost its home in the quake. The tale, written by Purnell and Kazickas, highlights terms much in evidence these days: Rubble. Shovel. Destroy.
Students take turns reading dialogue in front of the Web cam, grappling with the alien sounds. The word "earthquake," for example, comes out as if it began with a hard "h," as in "hurt."
It is no easy feat to teach online when connections are often balky and power supplies spotty. Simon, the assistant, loads the router and computers into his weathered Toyota to move them from one classroom site to another. He charges laptop batteries by generator every two days.
Instruction is sometimes interrupted by dropped video calls and technological hiccups that leave the teachers on the monitor frozen and mute for minutes at a time.
But such hurdles are minor irritations to students who for months have slept under tarps near their smashed homes.
(Los Angeles Times) - By Ken Ellingwood
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti Two dozen Haitian students manage a ragged unison in their stab at English.
"Today we go to school," they pronounce, more or less as one. Their instructor approves and gives the next cue.
"In school I will learn to write."
"In school I will learn to write," the students echo.
"The teacher will help me."
"The teacher will help me," the Haitians offer in return.
On this day, the teacher, Justin Purnell, sits 1,300 miles away in Asheville. The students are packed into a bare-bones classroom in Port-au-Prince, watching and answering via video on a laptop computer propped in front of them. The steamy air carries the whine of a generator running in the makeshift tent camp outside.
The adult students, some of whom have lived in tents since the Jan. 12 earthquake, are studying English as part of a fledgling project that uses Internet technology, faraway volunteer teachers, donated laptops and an earthquake-themed storybook written especially for the Haitians.
The long-distance English classes are the brainchild of Justin's father, Karl Purnell, a 76-year-old author and former journalist who has used the Internet and video hookups to teach young people in Nepal.
The elder Purnell brought his project, which he calls Teach the World Online, to Haiti in February. He got involved after a longtime friend and fellow journalist, Jurate Kazickas, suggested that he hop a flight there with her husband, Roger Altman, a former deputy Treasury secretary who was flying in supplies for quake victims.
"The next day I was on the way with two laptops, not having any idea if they had broadband," Purnell said by telephone from his home in Mifflinburg, Pa.
Internet service in Haiti was by then restored, and the remaining question was whether to teach English or French. Camp dwellers answered it.
"They said, 'Please teach us English,'" Purnell said.
A tool for recovery
Haiti is a Creole-speaking former colony of France, but English has also mattered, given the history of U.S. interventions and involvement here, and because 800,000 Haitians and their descendants live in the United States. Anglophone pop artists such as 50 Cent are big in Haiti, though few Haitians speak English fluently.
The aftermath of the earthquake has drawn legions of foreign aid workers, religious volunteers, contractors, journalists and others, and English often sounds like the unofficial language of the international relief and rebuilding effort, which is expected to last for years.
Many Haitians say mastering English may offer the best path to getting back on their feet.
So far, 150 people have joined the video English classes, which are free and held in three locations: next to the improvised tent camp; in the earthquake-cracked home of Purnell's Haitian assistant, Stanley Simon; and in a sprawling slum called Cite Soleil.
The project offers learning when many schools and universities remain closed and countless workplaces lie in ruins. Forty people showed up for one recent class, more than triple the target size. The classes have attracted some teenagers, but most of the students so far are older than 20.
Patrick Etienne, 24, said he would like to learn English so he can land a job with an international aid agency.
Emmanuella Fortunat, a 21-year-old college student attending her first class, needed only rudimentary English to explain why she was there.
"For finding job," she said. "A good job."
Technological snags
The class textbook, "A New House in Haiti," is a fictional story about a Haitian family that lost its home in the quake. The tale, written by Purnell and Kazickas, highlights terms much in evidence these days: Rubble. Shovel. Destroy.
Students take turns reading dialogue in front of the Web cam, grappling with the alien sounds. The word "earthquake," for example, comes out as if it began with a hard "h," as in "hurt."
It is no easy feat to teach online when connections are often balky and power supplies spotty. Simon, the assistant, loads the router and computers into his weathered Toyota to move them from one classroom site to another. He charges laptop batteries by generator every two days.
Instruction is sometimes interrupted by dropped video calls and technological hiccups that leave the teachers on the monitor frozen and mute for minutes at a time.
But such hurdles are minor irritations to students who for months have slept under tarps near their smashed homes.
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