“Reform is no longer enough. It’s time to change education. This message sits at the entrance of the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, which will host the pre-summit on education reform from June 28 to 30. Following a meeting on Tuesday, June 28, the Ministers of Education representing more than 84 partner countries in the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), including Haiti, signed a resolution aimed at “mobilizing action to address the unprecedented learning crisis threatens the future of children around the world. ” These ministers, according to the resolution, “are responsible for the education of more than 650 million school -age children in the world’s lowest -income countries.”
This resolution comes in an increasingly difficult context for many countries around the world, with geopolitical turmoil, health crises, food and security, and so on. “Quality education is essential to achieving all the Sustainable Development Goals. But the major global challenges we face underscore the need to transform education on a large scale. Our goal is clear: Accelerate with faster access to education, improved learning outcomes and gender equality through a fair, inclusive and robust education system that responds to the needs of the 21st century, “he said. Nesmy Manigat, who worked primarily on the preparation of this document.
The signatories of the document say they “recognize that scale change begins with strong national leadership and is accelerated by partners who are aligning their efforts with our systems.” The ministers pledged to transform education “by mobilizing political will at the highest local, national and international levels for increased, developed and innovative funding for education; building evidence and prioritizing important policy reforms, both inside and outside the school, that focus on learning; integrating gender equality into our education policies and planning and implementation priorities, in line with the Freetown Manifesto for Gender Transformative Leadership in Education ”.
“We welcome the growing political momentum behind the call by Heads of State to act on education funding. We recognize that our governments remain the primary source of sustainable and predictable financing for education, while reiterating the urgent need to protect and increase external financial resources that support investments in countries. in education.
And Haiti in all of this?
The road to educational reform in Haiti seems still long and full of pitfalls. Despite everything, the Minister of National Education and Vocational Training, Nesmy Manigat, believes in this, and has made it one of his priorities. He wants reforms and change. Criticized or not. Invited by Mr. Manigat to this pre-summit, Charles Guy Etienne, director of the Catts Pressoir college in Port-au-Prince, had the same opinion. This school has been broken with the traditional education system for many years. “It’s time for education to be considered a vector of the country’s development in reality, calls Charles Guy Etienne, interviewed by Le Nouvelliste. Educational reform means breaking the traditional system through which students learn through at a heart that has not used their skill. It is time for every citizen trained in the school to be a true agent of change. »
According to Guy Etienne, in order to transform the Haitian education system, we need to start by transforming public schools, national schools and high schools. “When national schools and high schools become standard schools, private schools have no choice but to adapt”, believes the teacher, even though it is considered that “public schools do not provide the service that some will give “. “In a country where parents are economically weak, students in national schools and high schools need to be agents of change,” argues Charles Guy Etienne.