Haiti Private School Body Urges 'Marshall Plan' as 2,000 Schools Close
Association leader Marguerite B. Clérié says gang violence has shut some 2,000 schools serving 200,000 students in the West department.
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 confront the closure of some 2,000 educational centers, according to radio station Magik9 as cited by almomento.net on Sept. 4. Clérié said the shuttered schools, concentrated in the West department, serve roughly 200,000 students, about 100 per school, and have been forced to close by armed gang violence. She described institutions obliged to shut down and displaced staff seeking new premises to continue operations. 'It is a true crisis for those schools,' she said, adding that teachers deprived of employment are 'desperate,' since teaching is their main source of income. Clérié said the plan would allow 'the greatest possible number of children to return to class as soon as possible,' particularly through fiscal measures supporting private schools, including reduced tax burdens, scholarships, preferential bank loan rates and executive support to rebuild vandalized infrastructure. She called the situation 'a humanitarian catastrophe' and questioned the 'poor level of urgency' given to the crisis by the Ministry of National Education and Vocational Training, criticizing insufficient investment despite an increased budget. The reference invokes the U.S. postwar recovery program designed in 1948 by Secretary of State George Marshall.