Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0157/01570.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 37KB | 606 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01570}
$Pretitle{364}
$Title{Haiti
Chapter 6A.   Education, Cultural Life, and Public Information}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Thomas E. Weil}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{primary
schools
school
rural
percent
education
urban
secondary
students
years}
$Date{1973}
$Log{Table 1.*0157001.tab
}
Country:     Haiti
Book:        Haiti, a Country Study
Author:      Thomas E. Weil
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1973

Chapter 6A.   Education, Cultural Life, and Public Information

     Haiti's dual culture-which has been a prominent feature of the society
since the colonial period, has been perpetuated in part by an educational
system geared primarily to the needs of the French-speaking elite. Few of the
approximately 90 percent of the population who speak Creole (see Glossary)
have achieved literacy. The low literacy rate, in combination with a political
climate generally less than conducive to free expression, has retarded the
development of the communications media. Despite these and other handicaps,
however, literature, painting, and folk music have developed strong
traditions.

     In the early 1970s the predominantly urban secondary-school enrollment
remained small but was growing at a rapid rate. The rate of growth of primary
schools was lower than that of the school-age population, however, and the
number of students in the country's one university, the University of Haiti,
was lower than it had been a decade earlier. The country's literacy rate was
among the lowest in Latin America; the rate of attrition at all levels of
schooling was very high; most of the schools were located in the cities and
towns, where only a small fraction of the population resided; and children
often commenced school so late that the enrollment of teenagers in
kindergarten was commonplace.

     The high value that people place on education is illustrated by the fact
that Port-au-Prince students from homes lacking electricity are frequently
seen studying under street lamps and by the relatively large number who seek
higher education abroad. Improvement of the educational system is, however,
hindered by a variety of factors. Rural and urban schools are the
responsibilities of different secretariats of state; the predominantly rural
character of the population exacerbates the problem of providing an adequate
number of schools; and the low level of national income severely limits the
amount of money that can be devoted to development of the program. Of equal or
greater significance, the curricula are for the most part based on the French
cultural pattern, which has little relevance to the needs and interests of
most of the population; and instruction is in the French language, which is
spoken and understood by only a small minority of the people.

     The nature of the abundant outpouring of folk expression has not changed
much since the colonial period. What has changed, and in the process has
introduced Haitian culture to the international community of patrons of the
arts, has been the attitudes and interests of the country's intellectual
elite.

     Despite a national market severely limited by poverty and illiteracy and
a political climate that has fluctuated between anarchy and tyranny, Haiti has
always had a distinguished intelligentsia-one that has included many prolific
writers. In fact, it has been estimated that on a per capita basis the
country's writers are accredited with more book titles (many of them published
in France) than any other country in the Western Hemisphere except the United
States.

     The cultural products of the elite of the nineteenth century were often
of high quality, but they were essentially an extension of French culture. The
recognition and cultivation by artists and scholars among the elites and the
incipient middle class of a culture distinctively Haitian was catalyzed,
ironically, by the humiliation of the United States occupation (1915-34). The
experience gave rise not only to a search for a new national identity based on
pride in the Negro race and the African heritage but also to the first
powerful literary expressions of social consciousness and protest. The new
trends in content were accompanied by increasing use of Creole and creolized
French (see Glossary), although there is no standardized written version of
the language and it has rarely been taught in Haitian schools.

     The renaissance in literature that gathered momentum in the 1920s and
1930s was followed in the mid-1940s by the initiation of the primitive art
movement, which in less than a decade had won international acclaim. Self-
taught painters such as Hector Hyppolite and Wilson Bigaud-inspired by the
voodoo religion's fusion of the natural and the supernatural and uninhibited
by the academician's emphasis on linear perspective and other rules of
naturalistic representation-introduced a truly innovative form of graphic
storytelling. The noted critic of Latin American art, Leopoldo Castedo,
commented: "The Haitian primitive painter is above all a narrator, less
concerned with reproducing his vision of the world than with evoking and event
by means of concrete symbols." Although the style of each painter has been
highly individualistic, the movement as a whole has been characterized by
inventive use of brilliant color and intriguing detail.

     Music is the most nearly universal expression of the character and
temperament-the pleasures, pains, and preoccupations-of the Haitian people.
For the most part Haitian music is African in origin, and even secular and
formal compositions are often adapted from, or inspired by, voodoo ritual
music. Drums are the basic instrument, and dances tend to be uninhibited. The
meringue, shared by all classes in the urban areas, is a typical musical form
throughout the Caribbean region, but there are dozens of folk dances, popular
in the rural areas, that are uniquely Haitian.

     Because circulation of the principal newspapers is confined almost
entirely to the Port-au-Prince area and because the country's single
television station is received only in that area, the mass medium that reaches
more people than any other is radio broadcasting. The government operates one
station with several transmitters; a number of stations are operated by
Protestant missionary groups; and the balance are commercially operated.
Broadcasts are made in both French and Creole, and programs feature music and
official releases.

     Although the constitution guarantees freedom of expression and there is
no precensorship, the press, radio, and television usually avoid publishing or
broadcasting any material that might offend the government. Freedom of
expression is thus limited by self-imposed censorship.

Education

     Education in Haiti had a late start. During the colonial regime,
schooling had been limited to the French elite to such an extent that the
first chiefs of state in the independent country were illiterate. In the
second decade of the nineteenth century, the country's first high school was
established by President Alexandre Petion; in the early 1970s it still existed
as the Lycee Petion Port-au-Prince. A comprehensive system failed to develop,
however, and the emerging elite who could afford the cost sent their children
to school in Paris.

     Educational development passed a milestone in 1860 when the signing of a
concordat with the Vatican resulted in the assignment of additional teaching
clergy to the young country. Education had already been largely an
ecclesiastical function, but the arrival of additional priests further
emphasized the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. The new priests were,
for the most part, French, and they were motivated to further a rapprochement
between Haiti and France.

     In this atmosphere, the clerical teachers concentrated their efforts on
the developing urban elite, particularly in the excellent new secondary
schools, where Haitian students were made fully aware of the greatness of
France,