Educators Demand 'Marshall Plan' as 2,000 Haitian Schools Close Amid Gang Violence

PORT-AU-PRINCE — The president of Haiti's Professional Association of Private Schools, Marguerite B. Clérié, called on the government to implement a kind of 'Marshall Plan' to address the closure of some 2,000 educational centers, according to almomento.net citing radio station Magik9. Speaking on September 4, Clérié said the shuttered schools, concentrated in the West department, serve roughly 200,000 students — about 100 per school — who now lack access to education amid armed gang violence. Some schools have been forced to close, while displaced staff seek new facilities to continue operating, the source reported. 'It is a true crisis for these schools,' Clérié said, noting that promised state aid has been slow to arrive and that teachers, deprived of their jobs, are 'desperate' because teaching is their main source of income. She described the situation as 'a humanitarian catastrophe' and criticized what she called the low level of urgency shown by the Ministry of National Education. The proposed plan would include fiscal measures supporting private schools, tax relief to enable scholarships, and preferential bank loan rates to help vandalized institutions rebuild. The original Marshall Plan was a 1948 U.S. initiative to aid post-war Western Europe.