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Education in New Milieu: Redefining the role of a School

A key purpose of schooling is to acclimatize children to the present environment andprepare them for the future. In that construct, education is evolving on the continuum ofbridging the present to the future.

It is thereby appropriate that education has developed so many dimensions since myown school days. Looking at todays kids, in light of expectations from them andnumerous distractions around, it is impressive to see them handling it all with suchaplomb, and a lot of the credit goes to schools.

In our days, the emphasis was on academics as being of utmost importance since wewere headed towards a future that secured individuals with a solid educationalfoundation. This led me to acquire an engineering degree, alongside my dream of beinga sportsperson. The importance of academics is paramount even today, and it shapesmy decisions even as an administrator in allowing young cricketers to focus on examsby creating flexibility in their sporting calendar obligations.

Schools like mine were also forward-thinking and allowed children with interest in areaslike sports to balance these pursuits along with meeting academic commitments. Thismade it possible for youngsters like me to find our paths in alternative careers that wehad a passion for.

In those days, it was not mandatory for a school to take up the duty of imparting moraleducation or values to kids. However, in all the institutions I attended, there wereteachers who considered themselves custodians of the values of the next generationand took it upon themselves to shape the kids value systems.

Todays schools have adapted to the prevailing context and impending future in severalways. Firstly, teaching techniques are adapting to formats where learning by rote hasbeen replaced with learning by doing. An example of this is the increasing use oftechnology in teaching and learning.

Secondly, academics is not structured towards solidity and security alone, but is aimedat building excellence and making the child a global citizen, in light with the future thatwaits for him/her.

Thirdly, there is emphasis on extracurricular activities towards creating a well-roundedindividual. As schools envision a future where unconventional careers will thrive, and

children can build their life on unique capabilities in various fields, schools are providingthem with the space and support to explore these.

Lastly, schools are stepping up and systemically delivering on the added responsibilityof 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 havingseen it up close, I can say that one such example is the Pearson Schools which


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integrates global standards, technology-based experiential learning, holistic curriculumand a strong foundation of values and culture.

Going forward, here are a few things, in my opinion, that schools must incorporate intothe system:

1. Students must be prepared for life, not just for careers. Given the vagaries of life, it isof utmost importance to develop young adults who are capable of adapting to the worldas it may be years from now.

2. What ought to be taught, is not thought, but the process of thinking. Students must beencouraged to think for themselves and approach problems and situations in their ownways, ensuring that their minds are well formed and not well filled. This calls fortransition 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 nothis/her own cultural, economic or social background, and hence schools must inculcatein its students respect for those who are different from them.

4. While delivering on curriculum, teachers should drive application based, creative andinnovative thinking. They should encourage students to move beyond textual learningsand explore the practical implications of what they read in their books.

Just as schools have responsibilities, as parents, we are accountable for making theright choices for our childrens education and future.The author is Anil Kumble, eminent Indian cricketer and Brand Ambassador- PearsonEducation 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, thateducation is a pivotal part of human development, and can positively influencestandards of living, health and governance.

Beginning in 1948, the international community recognized education as afundamental human right, through Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of HumanRights (United Nations, 1948). Articles 13 and 14 of the International Covenant onEconomic, Social and Cultural Rights further stipulate that primary education shallbe free and compulsory to all, secondary and higher education shall be equally


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accessible to all, and the development of a system of schools at all levels shall beactively pursued,(United Nations, 1948). These international benchmarks oneducation are based on the premise that education has a strong impact on acountrys 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 anequalizerwhich helps shrink discriminatory socioeconomic and gender gapswithin society (The World Bank, n.d.). Providing men and women, both rich andpoor, an equal opportunity to gain foundational knowledge and expertise training ina particular field can significantly reduce poverty and inequality (The World Bank,n.d.). A more highly trained workforce increases national productivity, which leadsto higher income and strengthens the economic health of a nation. This is apowerful contributor to development by allowing the country to become morecompetitive within the global market (The World Bank, n.d.).

Education not only leads to economic development but also health and humandevelopment. Health, as defined by the Education Development Centre, is notsimply 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 everyopportunity to learn, work, and enjoy their lives. Educated individuals are morelikely to be knowledgeable on a variety of healthcare topics, such as hygiene,nutrition, and reproductive health, and can thus employ the proper tools to leadhealthy lifestyles. Furthermore, because schools provide a space to learn positivesocial skills such as collaboration and conflict resolution, education has been linkedwith 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.).

Donate Monthly From $4.99Benefits To The Individual

Education can have a profound impact on an individuals health and nutrition aswell as productivity and earnings. The more educated a person is the more likelythey receive information on proper hygiene, healthy dieting and ways to preventcommunicable diseases; all of which can lead to increased life expectancy. Inaddition, research has established that every year of schooling increases individualwages for both men and women by a worldwide average of 10 percent. In poorcountries, the gains are even greater. Education can thus be a great leveler,reducing societal inequalities and enabling larger numbers of a population to sharein the growth process. Even more, education is particularly powerful for girls, whogain critical knowledge about reproductive health, which may increase their childsmortality and welfare through better nutrition and higher immunization rates.

Benefits To Society
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A more educated society is more economically competitive, environmentallyconscious and peaceful. An educated and skilled workforce is a pillar of theknowledge-based economy. This is important in a world where comparativeadvantages among nations come less from cheap labor or natural resources andincreasingly from technical innovations and the competitive use of knowledge.Education can promote concern for the environment, thus enhancing naturalresource management, national capacity for disaster prevention and the adoption ofnew, environmentally friendly technologies. It can also significantly reduce crime asrobust school environments can strengthen academic performance while mitigatingabsenteeism and drop out ratesprecursors of delinquent and violent behavior. Bypromoting peace and stability education can also contribute to democratization.Peace educationspanning issues of human security, equity, justice, andintercultural understandingis of paramount importance. Countries with higherrates of primary schooling and a smaller gap between rates of boys and girlsschooling tend to enjoy greater democracy. Democratic political institutions (suchas power-sharing and clean elections) are more likely to exist in countries withhigher literacy rates and education levels.

Higher Education

Primary education, as opposed to higher education, tends to be the focus ofeducation development initiatives, due to the perception that it has a greater directimpact on economic growth. However, a recent study suggests that highereducation is both a result and a determinant of income, and can produce bothpublic and private benefits (Bloom, Hartley, & Rosovsky, 2006). The study alsosuggests that higher education may create greater tax revenue, increase savingsand investments, and may be the catalyst for a more entrepreneurial and civicsociety. 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, technicallyoriented, 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 theresponsibility of parents and the church. At that time is was primarily available tothe upper classes and thus served to further widen the socioeconomic gap betweenthe 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 sectormaking it accessible to all. The development of socialist theory in the nineteenthcentury further supported this view, as it emphasized that the states primaryresponsibility was to ensure the economic and social well-being of the communitythrough government intervention and regulation in all sectors. While pre-Enlightenment scholars believed education to be a privilege, the period after therevolutions of 18th and 19th centuries came to view education as a right(Encyclopdia Britannica, 2011).


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Education policy in Haiti, at that time, paralleled this thinking. The first Haitianconstitution of 1801 mirrored the pre-Enlightenment view of education that theprivate sector should ultimately be responsible for the education of its youth. Theconstitution stated that, every person has the right to form privateestablishments for the education and instruction of youth(Haiti Government,1801). However, with the constitution revision of 1807, the practice of providingpublic education for all was established. Article 34 of the 1807 constitutionestablishes that, A central school shall be established in each Division and properschools shall be established in each District(Haiti Government, 1807). However,despite the influence of the French on Haitis state formation, it wasnt until morethan 100 years after the French had established education as a human right thatHaiti incorporated this principle into their constitution. In 1987, the GoH redraftedits1987 constitution of Haitito include Article 22, which reads, The Staterecognizes the right of every citizen to decent housing, education, food and socialsecurity(Haiti Government, 1987).Despite the1987 constitution of Haitiproclamation 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 isconsidered a human right. Families are often willing to sacrifice up to half theirincome, of approximately 400 USD annually, to send their children to school(McNulty, 2011). However, an inordinate number of children do not have theopportunity to enjoy the same privilege (Bruemmer, 2011). Of the approximatelythree to 3.5 million school-age children in Haiti, 800,000 do not have access toeducation (Bruemmer, 2011). In fact, Haitian public schools have the capacity toserve only one quarter of the school-age population (The World Bank, 2006). Evenbefore 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 receivesonly 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 tosecondary. Secondary education lasts for an additional four years, after which thestudents are qualified for university and professional training. The vocational andtechnical training falls into three categories. The most advanced are the TechnicalEducation Institutes, which require completion of secondary education, hence 13years of formal education. The second group consists of Vocational EducationSchools. These are more practically oriented than the schools belonging to the first

group and require the completion of the second cycle. The biggest categoryof vocational training is the Skill Training Centres which often do not require anyprior education. The biggest group comprises the Skill Training Centres, and thevast 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 HaitianState. It is however a responsibility the weak state, marked by decades of
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dictatorships and economic mismanagement, has not proved capable, or willing, totake on. The governments weak involvementin the education sector has created ahuge market for private actors. Only 8 percent of Haitian primary schools are state-run (MENFP 2007). The remaining 92 percent of the schools are non-public; thevast majority of them do not receive any public subsidies. More than 80 percent ofHaitian children currently enrolled in school are in private schools. Education in Haitiis a business, encompassing both serious and not so serious actors.

The high number of private education institutions, combined with the weak capacityof the MENFP, has left the Haitian government with little influence over theeducation sector. According to the Ministrys own numbers, more than 75 percent ofthe private elementary schools do not have the mandatory licence, and areoperating, unsanctioned, outside of government control. For these schools, thegovernment has control of neither the quality of the education they offer nor thefees they charge.

Among the schools in the private sector we find the very best and the very worst ofwhat 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 big-shot schools. Most of themare religiously founded and almost all of them areurban-based. They are well equipped, have the best teachers, and are the obviouschoice for the privileged families who would never consider sending their children toa public school. However, the private schools are also to be found at the verybottom of the scale. In the capital, Port-au-Prince, private primary schoolsare found on almost every street corner. Because of the density of them, peoplecondescendingly call them Lekol Borlette, literally meaning lottery schools,named after the small lottery stands that are also found on every corner. Anotherexplanation given for the name is that students in these schools are assumed tohave the same probability of graduating as winning the lottery (Salmi 2000). These

urban, private schools are usually short-lived and do not have the necessarycompetence and resources to provide quality teaching.

For some of the schools, the objective is clearly more directed towards makingmoney than towards educating children, and often the classes are overfilled and theteachers unqualified. There are formal criteria set by the government to be followedwhen establishing a new school, hiring qualified teachers being one of them.However, as the majority of the private schools are operating unlicensed, gettingaround the formal criteria and starting up a new school is not too difficult if one hassome resources and a few good contacts. In rural areas, community schools areoften established by NGOs, local associations or simply a local initiator with somebasic schooling. Local churches are frequently used as facilities, or the teaching

takes place in someones backyard or anba tonl, under a makeshift roofwithout walls. The community schools make an important contribution in an areawhere the public sector is failing. However, they are struggling to get qualifiedteachers, learning materials and suitable school buildings and are often incapable ofoffering 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 theteachers own level of education. The very low salaries make it impossible to attractqualified teachers to these rural positions.


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The private schools are heterogeneous, not only in terms of quality but also interms of ideology, organization and motivations. While some private schools areestablished primarily for profit, many schools are also established for non-profitreasons by local initiators in communities where no public school is available, or thelocal public school does not have sufficient capacity. A number of schools are alsorun or supported by local or international NGOs, or religious communities. Some ofthese schools subsidize the students and have beneficial arrangements formarginalized families. However, in a context of such widespread poverty, the non-profit actors are not able to fill all the gaps. One possible explanation for the lowenrolment rate is that considerable variation in the quality of education isweakening the parents incentives to enrol their children if a high qualityschool isout of reach because of economic reasons or due to geographical distance. If this isthe case, simply increasing the number of schools will not necessarily lead to animprovement in the number of children enrolled in school if not steps are taken toalso 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 sectorschools account for roughly 80 percent of all schools (primary, secondary, highereducation) (McNulty, 2011). Although it is considered to be the poorest country inthe Western Hemisphere, Haiti has the second highest percentage of privateschool attendance in the world(Bruemmer, 2011). Article 32 of the1987constitution of Haitistipulates that the State guarantees the right to education.It goes on to say that primary schooling is compulsory under penalties to beprescribed by law. Classroom facilities and teaching materials shall be provided bythe State to elementary school students free of charge (Haiti Government, 1987).As of the early 1900s, the government had only built 350 schools that primarilyserved the children of the political elite (Salmi, 1998). Eventually, religious, and

then non-denominational, for-profit organizations built and staffed schools to fill thegap in services that the government was unable to provide. This has resulted in asystem in which only 20 percent of students are served by the public school systemand admission is highly competitive (Bruemmer, 2011). To date, the governmentspromises have not been realized and in fact, the reality is quite the opposite. Dueto the severe lack of regulation and accountability mechanisms, private schools areable to charge tuition rates disproportionate to what average Haitian householdscan feasibly bear. Annual tuition rates range from approximately 50 USD in ruralareas to 250 USD in urban areas (Wolff, 2008). Given this history, the Haitianprivate education system has grown by default, rather than by the deliberateintention 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 andinto the world of work. Some children remain in school, but are disadvantageddoubling up studies with work. For households living in poverty, children may bepulled out of school and into work in the face of external shocks such as naturaldisasters, rising costs, or a parents sickness or unemployment. By leaving schoolto enter the labour market prematurely, children miss a chance to lift themselves,
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their families, and their communities out of a cycle of poverty. Sometimes childrenare exposed to the worst forms of labour that is damaging to their physical, mentaland emotional well-being.

You Can Donate Solar Jobs!Enrollment Rates

Haiti has one of the lowest enrollment rates in the world, with only 55 percent ofchildren aged six to twelve enrolled in school, and less than one-third of thoseenrolled reaching fifth grade. According to Making a Quantitative Leap Forward,the GoHs 2007 Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, of the 123,000students admitted to Haitian secondary schools in 2004, only 82,000, or 67percent, were able to receive secondary schooling, and most of those whocompleted their secondary schooling were unable to eventually gain admission to auniversity (The World Bank, 2006). Low enrollment and high drop out rates areprimarily due to economic hardship, high grade repetition rates, and linguisticbarriers (Luzincourt & Gulbrandson, 2010). Language can become an obstacle toachieving education, primarily due to the fact that a majority of Haitian familiesspeak 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 paythe direct and indirect costs of education; therefore, many, especially those withmultiple children, are forced to make difficult decisions in deciding which oftheir children will be provided an education. This ultimately leads to many childrenbeing withdrawn from school, which disproportionately affects girls (Luzincourt &Gulbrandson, 2010). Some parents choose to rotate education opportunities amongtheir children, allowing siblings to take turns attending school. This cycle ofinterrupted schooling leads to higher repetition rates, which in turn increases thecost of education for the family. Due in part to these factors, approximately 25percent of those 15 to 29 years of age remain illiterate (Daumerie & Hardee, 2010).

Donate Monthly From $4.99Incentives And Disincentives To Education

In a western context with free education and nearly universal enrollment, whethera child should go to school or not is not a decision of the parents. Education iscompulsory by law, and parents who prevent their children from attending schoolcould face legal sanctions.Incentives for basic-level education are as such not decisive for whether or not achild will be given schooling. The value of education is taken for granted. Educationis perceived as instrumental in terms of social mobility, as essential in terms ofsocializing 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 toschool. When it concerns higher education on the other hand, incentives becomeimportant.Whether a young person chooses to proceed with higher education after finishingcompulsory schooling may depend on whether he or she is accepted to thepreferred school, the cost of the school and the expected loss of income during thetime of study. He or she also needsto consider to what extent completing a higher education will lead to an advantage
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in the labor market, and perhaps most importantly the alternative to continuewith schooling. If the outlook of getting a better paid job is not improved afteradditional years of education, the incentive to start working right away may bestronger than investing time and money in further schooling. Still many proceedwith long educations that do not necessarily pay off in monetary terms in search ofa job they find interesting, higher social status or because education is perceived asa value in itself. In a context where education is costly, access limitedand enrollment in practice optional, the incentives for parents to enroll theirchildren in school become important as early as at the primary level. Whetherfamilies with limited resources prioritize sending their children to school will beinfluenced by the perceived value of education, the quality of theeducational system and the alternatives available, for instance the demand forchild labor. If the children after finishing years of expensive schooling are still badlyequipped for finding a skilled job or if the education system is structured in a waythat makes it difficult to advance, the incentives for enrolling children in school areweakened. 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 improvededucation and labor market policy.

Teacher Salaries

Within the existing structure it is exceptionally difficult to attract and retainqualified teachers, especially in the public sector where teachers sometimes workfor many months without receiving earned compensation. Low salaries, atapproximately 60 USD per month, in both the public and private sector, result inhigh teacher turnover, in addition to many staff members not reporting to school ontime and/or consistently (Lunde, 2008). The increased presence of internationalNGOs in Haiti since the earthquake has presented competition for quality personnel

within Haitis public education sector, as international organizations are typicallyable to offer higher wages. Low salaries also contribute to, and are partiallyresponsible for, the brain drain effect in which large numbers of Haitians migrate inorder to achieve a higher level of education and do not receive adequate incentivesto return. It is estimated that 80 to 86 percent of Haitians with a secondaryeducation leave the country (McNulty, 2011).

To be able to make a living, many of the rural school teachers need to supplementtheir salaries with agricultural activities. This means that the time they haveaccessible for teaching is reduced, in particular during the sowing and harvestingseason. In Maissade it was also a concern that teachers cross the border to theDominican Republic to work on the sugarcane plantations during the harvesting

seasons. This may leave the children without teachers for weeks and months at atime. In order to pay the teachers, the schools are dependent upon collectingschool fees from the students parents. As a significant number of the children whogain admission at the beginning of the school year drop out during the year, thetotal amount of income to the school is steadily reduced while their expensesremain the same. The result is often delays in the payment of the teacherssalaries. Teachers say that when this happens, they have to stay away for a while


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to put pressure on the directors to provide their pay. In the meantime thechildren 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 Duvalierregimes, when large parts of the educated elite escaped to the US and Canada. Twodecades later, Haiti is still suffering from the consequences of this void ofprofessional capacity. There are few qualified instructors available to teach the nextgeneration of teachers and other professionals. Among the few who do complete ahigher education, many intend to leave Haiti and find a more prosperous future inthe US, Canada or Europe. The brain drain from Haiti is one of themost seriousobstacles to reform and improvement within the education sector. According to theWorld Bank, a staggering eight out of ten Haitians with college degrees liveoutside of Haiti (Schiff & Caglar 2005). The fact that human resources in thecountry are so weak makes it very challenging to rebuild and improve the educationsystem. In order to rebuild the education sector, as well as to strengthen thenational capacity for development in general, it is essential to enact theconstitutional changes necessary to allow double citizenship for Haitians settledabroad and encourage the return of the Diaspora. When UNESCO conducted anevaluation of the teachers competence in 1997, 25 percentor almost 11,500teachers had not completed a primary education, a level equal to 9th grade. Themajority of unqualified teachers were to be found in private schools. While 48percent of the public schools teachers were qualified at the time of the survey, only8 percent of the teachers in the private schools were qualified. Knowing that thenumber of unlicensed private schools has increased during the eleven years thathas passed since this survey was conducted, it is more likely that the number ofunqualified teachers in Haitian schools has increased rather than decreased.

Although international donors like the World Bank have committed to increase thecapacity of the teaching colleges, it will still take a number of years to fill the gapbetween the supply and demand of qualified teachers. A national test of theteachers knowledge in the subjects they are teaching was recentlyconducted byIHFOSED (Institut Hatien de Formation en Sciences de lducation). Thepreliminary results are depressing, revealing that large parts of the profession arenot sufficiently trained to be able to teach the curriculum to the children. Often theteachers themselves have only completed a few grades more than the classesthey are teaching, and without appropriate teaching material, they are ill equippedfor providing the students the necessary teaching to obtain a satisfying level ofknowledge and prepare them for their final exams.

Teachers salaries are low, making the profession unattractive to educatedprofessionals. Teachers in public primary schools earn around 4000 HTG ($100USD) per month. The salary is regulated according to a national wage system andadjusted depending on experience. The salaries for teachers in the private sectorvary according to the quality of the school, but in the rural areas it is normallyconsiderably lower than in the public schools. Private rural teachers on averagemake around 1500 HTG ($38 USD) per month. If the quality of education isweakening parents incentive to send their children to school,resources need to be


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directed towards teachers training. However, educating more teacherswill not besufficient if low wages in the education sector make alternative livelihoods moreattractive, hence preventing teachers from working with education. In particular itis challenging to make teachers stay in the rural areas. In the experience of NGOswho provide teacherstraining, teachers who receive training find themselvesqualified for better paid jobs in the cities and may chose to relocate, leaving thearea even more deprived of teaching resources than before.

The education level achieved by most school teachers in Haiti is extremely low. Onaverage, most private school teachers have completed nine years of schooling. Infact, only 20 percent of teachers in private schools are graduates of teacher trainingcolleges (Salmi, 1998). The lack of professionally trained teachers contributes tothe low quality of many Haitian schools. This is, again, due in part to poor wagesand the migration of trained teachers abroad. The lack of teacher training isespecially apparent in disciplines such as chemistry and physics, where teachersmay be unable to conduct basic laboratory experiments (Luzincourt & Gulbrandson,2010).

Donate Monthly From $4.99Lack Of Physical Access To Education

Lack of physical availability of schools is a problem in some of the more remoterural areas. In some areas one is unable to find any schools within reasonablereach. More often there is a lack of access to affordable schools. The density ofschools in the rural areas is much lower than in the urban areas. In particular thereis a lack of public schools, which is the only type of schooling many of the ruralhouseholds can afford. Most Haitian households have access to a primary schoolwithin five kilometers. For 92 percent of the population it takes half an hour or lessto 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 necessaryfor children to enroll in schools further away from their homes. The nearest schoolmay also be out of reach due to economic costs. Less than 10 percent of theschools are public and, as is the case with all public infrastructures in Haiti, thepublic schools are concentrated in the urban areas or in the regional centers. Thefurther away from the center one lives, the less the chance of finding a publicschool within your area. The private schools often cost more per month thanthe public do per year. For many parents the only way to get their children intoschool is to try to get them into one of the public schools, even if that means thattheir 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 acrossthe region, many of them from areas far away, as far as Cap Rouge. The walk fromCap Rouge to Meyer takes approximately 2.5 hours each way. To be able to reachschool 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 beforeleaving their home in the morning. As a result the children are tired and hungrywhen they reach school, making them unfocused and inattentive during classes.


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The teachers claim that the children are so tired from walking and getting up earlythat they fall asleep during the classes.

The story repeated itself in other public schools. According to the teachers, childrenas young as the first grade will walk for hours in order to get to school. The longdistance 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 isthat the children are just too tired.In September, at the beginning of the schoolyear, the public school in Meyer had 416 students. In early December this numberdrops 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 reasonableto expect the long distance to be an important reason for children to stop coming toschool. 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 problemby sending their children to school only some days a week, but without sufficientattendance, 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 Haitianchildren are over-aged at the time of enrollment Parents do not want to send theirsix years old out on long daily walks, and instead delay their entry until they areolder. The long distance to school is a disincentive both for the parents to sendtheir children and for the children to attend. The parents may be concerned aboutsending their youngest out early in the morning while it still is dark, in particularthey may feel uneasy about letting girls walk alone. Concerning older children,these are likely to have more responsibility within the household. The more timethe children spend away from home for school, the less time they have available forperforming domestic tasks, working on farmland or helping out with family

business. If the family is dependent upon the help from the children, theadditional time spent on getting to and from school will strengthen the incentive tokeep them at home. Long daily walks may also weaken the childrens motivation forgoing to school.

Access To The Complete Cycle Of Education

While most Haitian households do have a primary school teaching, the first, andoften also the second cycle within physical, although not necessarily economicreach, the schools teaching higher grades are more strongly concentrated in thecentral areas. According to theDemographic Health Survey from 2000, only 28 percent of the rural households

have schools that teach the third cycle within five kilometers, while for 26 percentthe 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 additionto a steep increase in costs when students move on from the second to the thirdcycle, 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 continueto 7th grade, less than 10 percent of the children in the rural areas do so. For theother urban areas, the enrollment rate is around 30 percent (IHSI/Fafo 2003). In


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order to continue education beyond the 4th or 6th grade, the rural children willoften have to travel long distances daily or go and stay with urban households inPort-au-Prince or other central areas. These boarding arrangements take manydifferent shapes. Often the host families will be relatives or close friends of thefamily, but boarding is also arranged with strangers through intermediaries. In itsstrictest sense, parents pay the childs school expenses,in addition to board andupkeep to the household where the child is staying. In other cases the parents willdonate gifts and shares of the agricultural harvest to the host family, while thestudents may be contributing to the household with domestic work. This should notbe confused with restavek-arrangements where children from poor families areplaced in (at times marginally) more prosperous households, with hopes that theywill be given an education in exchange for domestic work. These children areusually 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 ofPort-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 theireducation, parents want the possibility of letting the children complete their studiesin their area of origin.

Expectations Of Education

The Haitian education system is designed so that students need to complete bothprimary and secondary levels, altogether 13 years of schooling, before they canapply for a technical school or university. For most Haitian children this is farbeyond their reach. Still Haitian parents have very high expectations about how fartheir children will continue with their education. When discussing at what leveleducation 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 wouldneed a university degree. To complete primary school is of no use, onerespondent argued, you can have a conversation, but you cant get a job. Literacyis recognized as an important and highly valued skill, but being able to read andwrite 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 intheir living conditions to be able to support their children all the waythrough university. Nevertheless, the people in the rural areas both in the southand in the central areas assigned a high priority to giving their children theopportunity for an education. As the agricultural output is decreasing withdeteriorating soil quality, the need for parents to make their children capable offinding 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 inthe cities. The reason why Haitian parents have such high expectations regardingtheir childrens educationneeds to be seen in relation to the lack of an intermediarylevel of education discussed previously. Another reason for the lack of valueassigned to lower levels of education is the importance of personal connections ingetting a job. It is an illusion that education leads toemployment, one of ourrespondent uttered in resignation. It is just a trap. Something theywant you tobelieve. The only thing that leads to employment is knowing the right people. It


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is a discouraging fact that having the right connections is an important asset ingaining access to work, but also in many cases to education.The general impression is that people place a high value on education and arewilling to go far in order to give their children the opportunity of schooling. Fromtownspeople in Port-au-Prince and NGO-workers it is sometimes argued thatpeople in the countryside do not see education as important and place too lowpriority on sending their children to school. This is seen as a contributing factor tothe large discrepancy between enrollment in rural and urban areas. The underlyingassumption is that rural people are ignorant and unable or unwilling to make theright decisions for their children. If this was to be the fact, judicial interventionssanctioning parents against not sending their children to school could be anappropriate response. It is an uncomfortable truth that not all parents always act inthe best interest of their children. This can have a number of idiosyncratic causeslike substance abuse, mental illness or simply a lack of altruistic disposition towardstheir own children for unknown reasons. Child abuse is taking place in all societiesat all times. Parents cannot always be trusted to protect the interests of theirchildren, 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 Haitiancontext where the education sector is unable to absorb the number of children ofcompulsory school age, the quality of education often is not up to standard andwidespread poverty is making it impossible for many to pay the school expenses oftheir children, sanctioning parents is not the way to go. First of all education needsto be made physically and economically accessible. Secondly, the educationprovided needs to be made relevant. It is important to note thatmarginalized families actions are motivated out of survival of the household,sometimes at the expense of the well-being of the individual member. Willinvestments in education lead to jobs for household members and increased incometo 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 toschool, but instead prioritize the limited resources towards food, fertilizersand medicines to ensure household survival. Marginalized households need toengage in a number of strategies to ensure the survival of thehousehold, sometimes at the expense of opportunities for the individual members.

Donate Monthly From $4.99Classrooms

Classroom sizes often surge to more than 70 children per, with one teacherpresiding (Kenny, 2011). Naturally, classrooms populated with such high numbersof 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 notreceive individualized attention. Classrooms are typically ill equipped, lackingtextbooks, desks, chairs, and basic teaching materials, such as chalk. There is asevere lack of school spaces, especially in areas hardest hit by the earthquake, toaccommodate the numbers of school-age children, in addition to a lack oftechnology in nearly all schools such as computers and Internet access, whichfurther curtails learning (Luzincourt & Gulbrandson, 2010). Schools vary in


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appearance from plain cinder-block structures with wooden benches and outdoorlatrines 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 toformal risk management arrangements like insurance or welfare benefits(Holzmann and Jrgensen 2000). A failed harvest, for instance, can be disastrous toa farmer without savings or access to credit. Some of the risks that makehouseholds vulnerable are idiosyncratic, like illness or death in the family, crime orunemployment. Others risks are threatening on a community or macro level, likenatural disasters, epidemics, riots or war. Whether the risks are unforeseen orpredicted might be of less relevance if a household lacks resources to prevent oravoid the events. The household remains vulnerable, but may engage in differentmitigation strategies to decrease the potential impact of a future risk. Examples ofmitigation strategies may be to diversify agricultural production, vary differentsources of income, participate in informal saving arrangements or extend socialnetworks, for instance through child placement or marriage.

To not enroll all children in school, but instead have some work at home and letsome live with other households may be a part of such a mitigation strategy. Whenthe harmful events occur, households engage in coping strategies to relive theimpact of the risk. Examples of coping strategies may be to sell assets, borrowmoney, migrate, sell labor, reduce consumption by, for instance, reducing foodintake for some or all household members or take children out of school. Tounderstand the behavior and organization of poor households, it is importantto identify what kind of risks they are vulnerable to and what strategies theyengage 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 vulnerablehouseholds, this calls for social policy interventions that can increase thehouseholds resilience to risks, for instance access to credit or insurancearrangements.

It is important to recognize that the options available to the poorest households areseverely limited by their lack of resources. For the most marginalized householdsthe money needed to send their children to school may exceed the total income ofthe household. Not enrolling children can as such not be seen as a part of ahousehold strategy. Instead the lack of economic resources is a binding constraintthat does not allow enrollment of all children as an option to the household. Inthese 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 onthe education of their children. The high rates of dropout and failures can beinterpreted in this direction. Enrolling children in school is a risky investment if youknow chances are they will not be able to complete the full year or be allowed toproceed to the next grade. Alternatively it can be interpreted in the oppositedirection that education is not given a high value, and that taking children out ofschool in difficult periods as such is not seen as entailing a high cost. Howhouseholds prioritize taking children out of school in comparison with


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year. The parents reported that it was the exam fees at the end of the year whichcaused them the most problems. If they are not able to raise the money necessaryto pay for the exams at the end of the year, the children are not allowed to sit fortheir 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 deniedpromotion from first to second, or second to third, grade because of their parentslack of ability to pay for their exams.

Donate Monthly From $4.99Accreditation And National Testing

As mentioned previously, there is very little regulation, oversight or monitoring ofthe education system in Haiti. Instructors do not require teaching degrees orcertifications, there are no official/legal permits to be obtained, and there is nostandard curriculum (McNulty, 2011). However, it should be noted that the Haitianpublic 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 accreditedschools in the country. These accreditations wereachieved through three different external systems: the US Agency for InternationalDevelopment (USAID), The World Bank, and the IDB (McNulty, 2011). The primarytool by which the GoH monitors the standards of its public schools is throughannual national exam testing. The Ministry of Education implements yearly nationaltesting administered in all recognized public and private institutions completingsixth, ninth, eleventh, and twelfth grades. The tests are similar in content to thoseadministered four decades ago in France and those currently offered in francophoneAfrican countries (Wolff, 2008).

Government Spending On Education

Although the education system in Haiti is largely inadequate, the government is notin a position to close deficient schools, as it is not equipped to take on theadditional responsibility, nor does it have the resources or capacity to do so. Beforethe earthquake, the GoH was spending approximately 100 million USD per year onschools, approximately two percent of its GDP and approximately 41 USD perstudent. This is slightly less than half the regional average of budget allocation forpublic education (McNulty, 2011).

Additionally, the education system suffers from rural neglect. It is highlygeographically centralized, with only 20 percent of education-related expendituresreaching 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 sectorslacked 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, formalgovernment and private sector communications are conducted in French. However,


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typically, the language of instruction in primary schools is in Kreyl. It is unclear atwhat grade level instruction shifts to French. What is known is that the nationalexaminations are administered in French, regardless of the fact that most Haitianfamilies speak Kreyl in their homes on a daily basis. There are greatinconsistencies 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) ischarged with regulating the education system in Haiti. The ministrys mission istwofold: to provide education services to its citizens and to play a normative andregulatory role (Luzincourt & Gulbrandson, 2010). However, MENFP does not havethe capacity to meet its mandate of monitoring, evaluating, and reporting on theacademic performance of schools primarily because it is over burdened and lackingadequate support (Luzincourt & Gulbrandson, 2010). For example, there is oneinspector responsible for providing accreditation, pedagogical supervision, andadministrative support for every six-thousand students (Luzincourt & Gulbrandson,2010). Organizationally, the governance and policy-making functions are notseparated from management functions and currently, an independent policy-making body does not exist (Luzincourt & Gulbrandson, 2010).

Previous Education Reforms

The current education reform in Haiti is but one of many previous efforts torevitalize the education system. Three major recent reform efforts were TheBernard Reform of 1978, The National Plan on Education and Training (NPET) of1997, and The Presidential Commission for Education in Haiti of 2008. The BernardReform was an attempt to modernize the Haitian education system. The Bernard

Reform sought to align the educational structure with labor market demands byintroducing vocational training programs designed as alternatives to traditionaleducation. In addition, Kreyl began to be utilized in classrooms as the language ofinstruction in the first four grades of primary school during this time period(Luzincourt & Gulbrandson, 2010). The National Plan on Education and Training wasa 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 thatprimary education would be made compulsory and free, neither of which have beenrealized to date.

More recently, The Presidential Commission for Education in Haiti, headed by JackyLumarque, rector of Universit Quisqueya, set forth recommendations for the new

national curriculum to outgoing Haitian President Prval and the Ministry ofEducation. Post-earthquake, Lumarque redrafted proposals for a National EducationPact. In doing so he consulted a wide cross-section of parents, teachers, studentsand education NGOs on the issue. The primary goals are: 100 percent enrollment ofall school-age children, a free education to all, including textbooks and materials,and a hot meal daily for each child. Lumarque stated that accelerated teachertraining is essential for this work. The commission traveled throughout the countryasking parents and community leaders what they desired most for their children.


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When the national curriculum plan is finalized, all public schools and those privateschools that choose to participate in the education reform plan are expected tobegin utilizing standardized teaching materials in addition to standardized methodsto 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 USSecretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, President-elect Martelly remarked on thepriorities he had emphasized during his presidential campaign. He spoke brieflyabout 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 newfund for education. He told reporters that his cabinet intends to create an educationfund that will ensure free primary schooling for Haitian children,(Fletcher, 2011).

Donate Monthly From $4.99Inter-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 Educationand the National Education Commission to help institute a major reform(Bruemmer, 2011). This is a five-year, 4.2 billion USD plan calling for privateschools to become publicly funded, resulting in all children having equal access to afree education. The plan proposes to have all children enrolled in free education upto sixth grade by 2015, and ninth grade by 2020 (Bruemmer, 2011). The IDB hascommitted 250 million USD of its own grant resources and has pledged to raise anadditional 250 million USD from third-party donors. The IHRC, whose membersinclude Co-Presidents Prime Minister of Haiti, Jean Max Bellerive and former USPresident 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 administratorsparticipating in the new system (Bruemmer, 2011). In order to participate in thisnew system, schools will undergo a certification process to verify the number ofstudents and staff at their school, after which they will receive funding to upgradefacilities and purchase education materials (Bruemmer, 2011). This is a first movetowards establishing tracking mechanisms, which are currently non-existent. Inorder to remain certified, schools must continue to be compliant with increasinglydemanding standards, including the adoption of a national curriculum, teachertraining and facility improvement programs. The plan will also finance the buildingof new schools and the use of school spaces to provide services such as nutritionand health care (Bruemmer, 2011).

To qualify, schools must be structurally sound, offer free tuition, and must adoptthe new national curriculum, which will include annual student testing and twoyears of mandatory training for teachers (IDB, 2010). The goals are to eliminatelow quality, inefficient schools and consolidate many others over time. Currently,most private schools serve approximately 100 students; yet they have the capacityfor up to 400 (McNulty, 2011). The intention is to eliminate waste and to increasethe productivity and efficiency of the system.


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Higher Education

All levels of the education system are highly geographically centralized, especiallythat of higher education. Before the earthquake, 139 of Haitis 159 post-secondarylearning institutions were located in Port-au-Prince (INURED, 2010). These includedprofessional and vocational schools, technical schools and traditional universities. Itshould be noted however, that the Ministry of Education is unable to provide anaccurate accounting due to the lack of tracking mechanisms. Of these 159institutions, 145 were private and of those, only 10 provide accreditededucation.INURED reported in their March 2010 Post-Earthquake Assessment of HigherEducation that of the remaining 135 institutions, 67 percent do not have permissionto operate from the governmental Agency of Higher Education and ScientificResearch (INURED, 2010). It is unclear why they are operating without permissionor if permission was sought after. The University of Haiti is the largest institution ofhigher education in Haiti. In 2005, it served 15,000 students and employed 800teachers, which equates to 38 percent of the total number of students enrolled inhigher education in the country (Gosselin & Pierre, 2007). In 2007, MENFP reported

the university population of Haiti to be approximately 40,000 students. Of thesestudents, 28,000 attended public universities and 12,000 were enrolled in privateinstitutions (Wolff, 2008).

Universities typically experience a shortage of adequately trained professors,libraries, textbooks, teaching materials, laboratories, and online resources. There isalso a lack of emphasis on academic research (INURED, 2010). Additionally, thereis an imbalance between student enrollment rates and the number of teachershired. Between 1981 and 2005, student enrollments rose from 4,099 to 15,000(MENJS, 2001). However, the numbers of professors staffed did not meet theincreased demand. During the same time period the number of teachers rose onlyfrom 559 to 700 (US Library of Congress, 1989).

Impact Of The Earthquake

The earthquake severely interrupted education for students nation-wide. It isestimated that approximately 1.3 million children and youth under 18 were directlyor indirectly affected. Of this population, 700,000 were primary school-age childrenbetween six and 12 years old. However, it is unknown precisely how manycasualties there were in total. What is clear is that the earthquake killed and injuredthousands of students and hundreds of professors and school administrators(INURED, 2010). Most schools, even if minimally or not structurally affected, wereclosed for many months following and it was normative for individuals to refuse toenter standing buildings, out of fear. More than a year after the earthquake, many

schools remained closed and, in many cases, tents and other semi-permanentstructures have become temporary replacements for damaged or closed schools(INEE, 2004). By early 2011, more than one million people, approximately 380,000of whom are children, remained in crowded internally displaced people camps(UNICEF, 2011).

The Haitian Ministry of Education estimates that the earthquake affected 4,992 (23percent) of the nations schools. Of these, 3,978 (80 percent) of the schools were


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either damaged or destroyed, affecting nearly 50 percent of Haitis total school anduniversity population, and 90 percent of students in Port-au-Prince (Haiti SpecialEnvoy to the United Nations, 2008). Higher education institutions were hitespecially hard, with 87 percent gravely damaged or completely demolished(INURED, 2010). In addition, the Ministry of Education building was completelydestroyed (UNESCO, 2010). The cost of destruction and damage to establishmentsat all levels of the education system and to equipment is estimated at 478.9 millionUSD (Haiti Government, 2010). Another residual effect has been the number ofchildren disabled by resulting injuries. Prior to the earthquake, approximately200,000 children lived with disabilities in Haiti and as a result of the earthquakemany 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 maintainingsocial order and economic progress, there are new issues whichthe traditional patterns of socialisation and politics have difficultyin addressing. Calls for creativity and transparency strike at theroots of mainstream traditional Asian values; posed as freedomversus authoritarian values renders the issues intractablyadversarial. The two are of course interrelated and they areproducts of the dynamic interplay between emerging modernculture with freedom and capability to assume responsibilit y, and

automatic deference to authority which is traditional.

The forming of new values has thus to emerge from education. Thismeans kindergartens, primary schools, secondary schools anduniversities 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 byreflection and theorising and then doing again. Learning this way isfun, exciting and relevant. The individual gets a sense ofachievement 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 neweducation is indeed the making of a new milieu, albeit inmicrocosm. It is thus suggested that a campus-town is the mostdesirable form as test-bed. The campus-town should be a placewhere community and school interacts; where learning is linked tolife; where parents actively participate in e ducating their childreneven while they pursue their careers. It is thus proposed that the


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learning zone is the heart of the township providing intellectual,aesthetic and moral stimulus so that working, living and playing areintegrated into learning. This is the prototype of the informationage. In the 21st Century milieu, the quality of the question is asimportant as finding the right answers.

Educational PhilosophyThe educational philosophy revolves around two sets of ideas: The5Es and the 5Cs. The 5Es are: Empowerment, Ethics, Economics,Environment and aEsthetics. All the Es are intertwinedpedagogically. Empowerment should never be without ethics.Empowerment is therefore always towards achieving some socialgood. Therefore empowerment has conscience. Economics is thusalso infused with concern for the environment. AEsthetic sensibilityis a key in the opening up of the intellect, the intuition and thesenses, and thus the human spirit is liberated through directresponses rather than through iconic substitution and symbolicritual as is usually the case.

Thus teachers and students should be empowered throughcarefully contextualised project-driven learning situations. A newculture of trust and adventure arises from successful risking andsharing. These are seldom incorporated into education strategies.Yet these are key strategies to make life and learning concrete andexciting. Ethics will be thus realised not as abstract values but asexperientially validated convictions for the individual. Concern forthe environment is, in like manner, experienced as a shared valueand therefore becomes a personal ethic. AEsthetics is realised as

joyful sens ing of the sensual, the ethica l and the coherenceinherent in good ideas.

The 5Cs are: Competence, Confidence, Courage, Conscience &Compassion and Creativity & Imagination. These grow sequentiallyand spiral outwards in ever widening cycles. Informationacquisition in the Information Age is no longer the principal focus,the good question is. To ask the deep question, Courage andCreativity are necessary. These, in turn, are derived from aconfidence that is founded on competence. Real courage comesfrom real competence. Conversely, false courage comes from falseconfidence. And conscience is vital too. This comes f rom thecourage to heed the deep small voice and not set it aside for fear.Thus the 5Cs are interlinked and together they constitute the keystrategy, enjoining learning to personality. The internalisation ofknowledge is thus dependent on character formation. This is thekey to releasing innate human propensity for ethical relationshipand creativity in the world. Education has to recognise this centralfact.

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