#4854: Re: #4844: school statistics in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: DelRauth@aol.com

Hi Joel.  We've forwarded your query to three persons who are quite 
knowledgeable about education stats in Haiti.  But - we are also interested 
in any statistics that you receive the the sources thereof.  Our experience 
has been that accurate, credible statistics are very difficult to obtain 
because the government itself has no good database.

Many of the stats are judgments made and data available by UN sources which 
we personally believe are often unreliable because of limited resources of 
the UN.  

Relative to your questions, in our talks on Haiti (we've been involved since 
the early 80's and have been there many times and have concluded from many 
different sources the following kinds of data:

1) Approx. 3-5% overall of gradeschool children attend.  This may be higher 
in Paup and might rise to 20%.

2) H.S. attendance - probably 1 or 2%.  

3)  We believe 85-90% of children, both in grade school and h.s. receive 
their education from private or mission schools.  The public school system in 
the rural areas is virtually nonexistent and where it does exist children 
meet in the open under thatched roofs with untrained teachers who often 
receive no pay.

Hope this is helpful or at least sets some sort of a baseline for you.

Peace - Bob DellaValle-Rauth
Consultant - Pax Christi Haiti Task Force