The Power of Partnership for Sustainable Education: A Case Study

from Haiti
A Quick-Fire Presentation
13th UKFIET International Conference on Education and Development
Learning for Sustainable Futures: Making the Connections
September 15-17, 2015
University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

Jane Kellum, Chief of Party, Partners for Learning

CARE Haiti
jane.kellum@care.org

With contributions from:

Claudel Choisy, Social Movement Coordinator, Partners for Learning
CARE Haiti
claudel.choisy@care.org

I.

Introduction

The Republic of Haiti is a striking country, lying at the heart of the Americas
between Cuba and Puerto Rico. It is a land rich in history and culture, showing a
marked confluence of African, European, and North American influences. The value
that Haitian parents place on education is another notable aspect of the national
psyche and culture. Unfortunately, Haiti is also characterized by high levels of
poverty, weak governance, deteriorated or non-existent infrastructure, and a
struggling education system. Compared with other countries in the region, Haiti is
considered the poorest in the Western hemisphere with approximately 78% of the
population living below the poverty line 1. More than 40% live with food insecurity 2.
Economic disparity is also extreme with 63% of the countrys wealth in the hands of
the richest 20%3. Among the adult population, only 48.7% of adults can read and
write in Haiti4. The education sector overall is marked by acute deficiencies related
to access, retention, quality, governance, and coordination.
In 2013, CARE, with funding from new global partner Educate a Child of Her
Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser of Qatar, began a new initiative, Partners for
Learning (P4L), to respond to these education sector challenges. The program aims
to contribute to increased access to equitable, quality primary education for girls
and boys in Haiti by increasing enrollment and completion of a primary cycle of
education among out-of-school girls and boys (OOSGB) estimated to represent
between 9.8%5 and 23%6 of all school-aged primary children 7. Specifically, P4L has
set out on an ambitious journey to identify, enroll, and retain 50,000 OOSGB over a
1 UNICEF Haiti. www.unicef.org/haiti/french/overview_16366.htm (Last accessed September 2, 2015).
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 UNICEF. http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/haiti_statistics.html (Last accessed September 2, 2015)
5 Phareview. Commissioned by USAID. Study on the Access of Children and Youth in the 6-18 Age

Group to Education Services, 2014, p. 3 **Note that original data from this study was collected in
December 2012 through the Enqute sur les Conditions de Vie des Mnages Aprs Sisme (ECVMAS)
conducted by the Institute Hatienne de Statistique et de lInformation.

6 Institute Hatienne de Statistique et d lInformation. Enqute Mortalit, Morbidit et Utilisation des

Services (EMMUS V-DHS), 2012, p. 10-11

7 The national PSUGO initiative was launched by Haitian President Michel Martelly for the 2012-2013
school year. In other words, the first cohort of OOSGB was enrolled through this subsidy program in
September 2012. This may explain differences between the cited EMMUS V and ECVMAS data,
considering the time periods of data collection for the latter two studies: January-June 2012 and
December 2012, respectively.

five year period through October 2018. The program design includes five key
components with related activities:
1. MENFP and partner capacity to identify, enroll and monitor/evaluate retention of
OOSGB within the education system is strengthened and expanded. A primary
activity includes creation of a decentralized education governance and
leadership structure, Municipal Education Commissions (CMEs), in collaboration
with the National Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MENFP 8).
2. A social movement to address the OOSGB problem across the country is
consolidated and expanded. Principal activities include supporting coordination
of the National Education Commission of CLIO 9 (CEC), contributing to research on
OOSGB, and conducting advocacy.
3. Primary school options created, expanded and/or strengthened, and attended by
OOSGB. Activities include identifying and securing space in public and non-public
schools for OOSGB enrollment and identifying and enrolling OOSGB.
4. Targeted schools receiving OOSGB have improved learning environments. Main
activities include training for pedagogical advisors, teachers, and school
directors, establishment of mini school libraries, and creation of School
Management Committees, commonly referred to in Haiti as Associations of
Directors, Teachers, Students, and Parents (ADPEPS10).
5. Social/economic support to targeted OOSGB is expanded. Activities include
provision of school material and hygiene kits and creation of community/schoolled retention.
As the name, Partners for Learning (P4L), suggests, partnership at various levels
community, governmental, non-governmental, corporate/private sector, and beyond
is at the heart of the initiative. Specifically, P4L is implemented through formal
partnerships with a diverse range of organizations that include the Haitian Ministry
of Education and Vocational Training (MENFP), the Inter-American Development
Bank, LIV Livres Solidaires, Gap Inc, TOMS, the United Methodist Committee on
Relief (UMCOR), and Lid, a small arts-based education and empowerment initiative
whose founders include Hollywood actor Rainn Wilson and fiction writer, Holiday
Reinhorn, and less formal yet frequent collaborations with over a dozen other
diverse organizations. P4L also established a formal relationship with renowned
Haitian singer-songwriter, Jean Jean Roosevelt, who is now an official ambassador
for the initiative and Haitian children overall.
While all partnerships play important roles in P4L, those at the community and
governmental level are essential for the programs success. At the community level,
mobilizing local actors that range from elected village representatives to womens
associations were essential to identifying and enrolling out-of-school children.
8 Ministere de lEducation Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle
9 CLIO is the Cadre de Liaison Inter-NGO which serves as a platform among national and international
non-governmental organizations in Haiti.

10 Associations des Directeurs, Professeurs, Elves et Parents (Associations of Directors, Teachers,

Students, and Parents)

Another aspect of this community level partnership was solidarity-building with

private schools which comprise more than 88% of all schools in Haiti to enroll
OOSGBwith no subsidiesin a country where both the government of Haiti and
major donors have used this largely unsustainable method to reach OOSGB.
Governmental level partnership, specifically with the MENFP, also plays a crucial
role in P4L by guaranteeing enrollment in public schools without fee for the
identified OOSGB. The MENFP also supports identifying the children, particularly
through public school directors, in the communities where P4L operates.
Additionally, CARE works closely with the Ministry to ensure P4L supports the
evolving government identified priorities around education. On a final note, P4L
benefited from collaboration with initiatives supported by the Ministry of Social
Affairs and Labor (MAST), in identifying the first cohort of OOSGB.
The P4L program design, and ultimately the programs success, relied upon certain
assumptions, or hypotheses related to these community-based and governmental
partnerships holding true throughout the programs duration:

Community mobilization is sufficient to identifying, enrolling, and retaining

OOSBG without monetary and/or material support for these efforts.
Solidarity building with private schools is sufficient to identify, enroll, and
retain a significant number of the targeted 50,000 OOSGB once space in
public schools is exhausted. This is done without subsidies or other significant
financial support to the schools, the identified OOSGB, and their families
beyond a minimal package of services outlined above in the fourth program
component: education quality interventions in schools such as teacher
training, mini-libraries, and creation of School Management Committees
(ADPEPs).
Public schools have sufficient existing resources to honor the CARE-MENFP
partnership agreement and ultimately the constitutional obligation to enroll
identified OOSGB in P4L operating zones.
The National Ministry of Education has the economic and political means to
fulfill its commitment of school cantinas, uniforms, and books to all public
schools during the life of the program.

With identification and enrollment of the first cohort of OOSGB complete and the
process for the second cohort in its final stages, CARE has been able to preliminarily
test these hypotheses and document findings through a variety of mechanisms that
include donor reports, formal lesson learned documents, the P4L baseline study,
and informal interviews with program partners and beneficiaries. The following is
the initial finding around these hypotheses:
Partnership, specifically at the community level, is a powerful and necessary
strategy to address the identification, enrollment, and retention of OOSGB and
achieve sustainable education in Haiti but not sufficient without formal
decentralized government-led leadership in education, specifically through
Municipal Education Commissions, and central government level commitment
to decentralization and sustainable funding.
In the sections below, we will explore our arrival at this conclusion. The first section
will examine P4Ls learning to date around how community level mobilization and
4

partnership has been a powerful strategy for identification, enrollment, and

retention of OOSGB. This overview will include a specific analysis on how the
community level mobilization was catalyzed by creating Municipal Education
Commission (CME), a key decentralized education leadership structure. Additionally,
it will explore the unmet needs of community partners and beneficiaries that have
proven to be significant road blocks to the mobilization and solidarity needed to
identify, enroll, and retain OOSGB. The second section will reflect on the connection
between central government level commitments and the success of the
decentralized education leadership, which through P4L experience is showing itself
to be a viable option for ensuring sustainable education services in Haiti, specifically
related to reaching OOSGB.

II.

Galvanized community mobilization and partnership

through decentralized education leadership in favor
of OOSGB

The design of P4L contemplated the complexity of identifying at least 10,000 out-ofschool children in Haiti each year: relatively limited staff (only one field agent in
each of the sixteen operating communes), operations in a geographically distant
and difficult-to-access regions of Haiti, and the often mobile nature of OOSGB
whether in terms of moving or starting and stopping school in sporadic cycles. From
the beginning, the design of the program took account the need to mobilize the
government, the communities, and a diverse range of partners because such an
ambitious undertaking is simply neither possible nor desirable for one organization
such as CARE. However, the assumption was that the spirit of solidarity and
mobilization of partners, particularly at the local community level, was enough to
tackle this daunting task each year even without transfer of significant resources to
these partners beyond CAREs minimal support service generally reserved for the
schools and the enrolled children. This, of course, would also rely on the other two
assumptions around the government commitments to education and public school
capacity holding true. P4Ls original project design also contemplated supporting
the creation of Municipal Education Commissions to strengthen local education
governance. However, beyond governance the latter is proving to be a
decentralized education leadership structure by catalyzing the community
mobilization process for identification, enrollment, and retention of OOSGB within
the framework of P4L. Ultimately, the P4L initiative was looking for a communitybased and local alternative to the large-scale subsidies programs that have been
unsustainable in Haiti for reaching OOSGB. While the assumptions generally held
during the identification and enrollment of the first cohort, some evidence began to
emerge showing some weaknesses in our original hypotheses. The identification
and enrollment process for the second cohort for 2015-2016now near completion
further supports this finding.

P4L Experience for 2014-2015

For the 2014-2015 cycle, CARE identified 15,030 OOSGB (6917 girls and 8113 boys)
through extensive mobilization of a diverse range of partners as noted previously.
CARE minimally collaborated with formal organizations such as the Ministry of Social
5

Affairs (MAST)governmental social safety net program, Kore Fanmi, in the Plateau
Central and a local NGO, Restavk Freedom, through its pastor network in the
GrandAnse Department to identify 4,058 OOSGB (1797 girls and 2261 boys) in
these operating zone. More importantly, the bulk of identification came from: (1)
informal community leaders, (2) community based organizations that included
agricultural networks, religiously-affiliated groups, and womens associations, and
(3) public and private school directors. The participation of these three main
community partners was galvanized in large part by the newly created
Municipal Education Commissions through P4L in the projects operating
zones.
In the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake which gravely impacted an already fragile
education system, the Government of Haiti, political parties, and key civil society
actors came together to form the National Pact for Education and Training to guide
the nations education reform through 2030. In line with the Haitian Constitution
which stipulates in Article 32, The responsibility for primary, secondary, technical
and agricultural schools are the responsibility of the state and local authorities. The
creation of Municipal Education Commissions (CME) was named as a principal way
to this end. Envisioned members included the town mayor, locally elected
representatives who are members of local structures called CASEC 11 and ASEC12,
chief MENFP inspectors, and representatives from schools networks where existing.
Their envisioned role would be:

Identification of primary-age OOSGB;

Maintenance of school buildings;
Monitoring provision of universal, free, and compulsory education;
Support for school mapping.

Their creation and subsequent institutionalization was reiterated in the Ministry of

Educations Operational Plan 2010-2015. Though mentioned in the Haitian
constitution, the National Pact and the Ministrys five year plan, the CME still have
no formal legal framework passed by parliament. Additionally, in practice only one
pilot had taken place as of early 2013 at the time of P4Ls design. Within that
context, the MENFP requested CARE to include this as a key intervention for its P4L
program. While originally included largely to support the Ministrys operational plan
efforts, CMEs have quickly proven to be an essential mechanism for identifying,
enrolling, and likely retaining OOSGB by providing the leadership needed to make
community mobilization successful at the grassroots level.
The CMEs acted as a liaison between CARE and the above-mentioned grassroots
organizations that have the intimate knowledge of their communities, including
which children do not go to school. Beyond collecting names and information about
OOSGB, the CME members with the support of most public school directors actively
vetted the list. They did this by supporting CARE in organizing community meetings
with the identified OOSGB to interview both parents and children to ensure P4L
reached those whom it specifically targets. In some communities, the CMEs
11 Conseil d'Administration de la Section Communale (Communal Section Administrative Council)
12 Assembl de la Section Communale (Communal Section Assembly)
6

provided refreshments during these community meetings which went beyond any
expectation or agreement made with CARE.
For the enrollment process, another aspect of this community level partnership was
solidarity-building with private schools. While by design public schools form over
two-thirds13 of all P4L partner schools, CARE secured space for 3514 OOSGB in these
private schools primarily by appealing to the school directors sense of we are all in
this together and offering a modest package of services that includes teacher
training, development and training of school management committees (ADPEPs),
and creation of mini-libraries with related training. The CARE/P4L field staff
accomplished this by having one-on-one meetings with the school administration to
discuss the initiative in detail and explore together the social and economic benefits
of having all children in school. CARE experienced a few cases where private school
directors approached the P4L field staff to be partners with the program knowing
already that P4L was a non-subsidy program; these school directors had a sincere
desire to be part of an initiative that worked to get all children in school.
Another element of mobilizing community was the signed MOU between the MENFP
and CARE. This agreement reinforced and validated our presence in the field; it also
prevented possibly resistant local Ministry representatives and public school
directors. This agreement was an important part of the P4L strategy as it outlined
the Ministrys commitment to ensuring enrollment for the majority of identified
OOSGB in public schools and guaranteeing provision of uniforms, school cantinas,
and school manuals to all public schools in the nation.
In the end, the P4L initiative enrolled 12,859 OOSGB (5,886 girls and 6,945 boys 14),
exceeding the first year target by nearly 3,000 in 191 public and 89 private schools.
At first glance, it appears our assumptions were holding true with these great
results for the first year, principally associated with community mobilization,
partnership, and solidarity-building, catalyzed by CME leadership. However, the
process of identification and enrollment for 2014-2015 was not without challenge.
The various obstacles revealed the first cracks to the foundation of our
assumptions:

First, many private schools approached by P4L refused to become

partners not because they did not believe in the spirit of the
initiative and the overall importance of education for all but rather
for very real economic hardship in terms of covering the tuition, fees, and
cost of school feeding programs out of their own often very meager profit,
particularly in rural areas.

Second, school directors often did not support children attending

school without a uniform, shoes, or books. The latter is deeply rooted in
Haitian school culture. The sense of pride that going to school brings is

13 220 of a total of 322 partner schools. P4L had 280 partner schools (191 public and 89 private) for
2014-2015 and have added an additional 42 partner schools (29 public and 13 private).

14 CARE is in the process of verifying the sex of 28 children with schools currently.
7

largely linked to a childs appearancehow clean is the child, how shined and
nice are the childs shoes, how cleaned and pressed is the childs uniform and
does it match the others, how well done is a girls hair with ribbons, how
much ruffle does the girls socks have, does the child have the same books,
notebooks, and supplies as the others. Although we anticipated some related
resistance, we didnt realize it would be so great. Additionally, oftentimes
the parents themselves did not allow their child to attend school if
he or she does not have the right uniform, shoes, and books. Given
this reality as well as the MENFPs inability to honor its commitments to
providing material support (see below), P4L is working to establish messaging
around the importance of school participation versus the importance of
uniforms without also overstepping our bounds on this cultural aspect of
Haiti. While not the only organization to advocate this message vis--vis the
MENFP, CARE contributed to the Ministers official announcement on
September 1, 2015 that all directors must allow children to attend school
without uniforms. P4L has also secured two partnerships to at least cover
some of these needs: UMCOR for minimal school and hygiene supplies and
TOMS for shoes.

Third, P4L experienced cases in which after establishing a partnership,

directors began expecting economic support beyond the clearly
communicated P4L support package. This expectation is linked to the
imbedded subsidy culture in Haiti that exists due to numerous subsidy
initiatives in the past (see next point below). Despite repeated messages and
a signed contract outlining clearly the support that could be provided
according to the limited resources of the P4L initiative, several directors
thought CARE was perhaps just trying to drive a hard bargain.

Fourth, related to the above, P4L experienced school directors resistance

from both public and private schools to collaborate due to negative
experiences with the government subsidy program, PSUGO 15. The
governments program provided access to approximately 142,000 previously
out-of-school girls and boys. However, the government overestimated the
systems capacity to absorb these children and the associated cost, thereby
leaving many promises of support to these enrolled children unfulfilled. As
mentioned, public schools also face great challenges. For example, a large
number of in-service teachers have yet to receive contracts and/or receive
payment sometimes for years, leading to high teacher absence and strikes.
Furthermore, lack of benches, proper WASH facilities, other basic
infrastructure, and overall limited resources to meet the needs of enrolled
children is unfortunately too often the norm in public schools. As a result,
many school communities were hesitant to participate in another program
that sought to enroll large numbers of students.

Fifth, the MENFP committed to concentrating donor (e.g. USAID, UNICEF, and
others) support for uniforms, student school kits and canteen services in
public schools nationwide. This decision was intended to further strengthen

15 Programme de Scolarisation Universelle Gratuite et Obligatoire (Program for Universal, Free, and
Compulsory Education)

public schools and was an important motivating factor for P4L public schools.
However, MENFP resources have been sporadic and scarce which in
many cases has hampered schools ability and diminished their
commitment to enrolling large numbers of OOSGB. Despite this being a
national commitment and one found in the CARE-MENFP MOU and the triparty agreements that are signed between CARE, the respective MENFPs
Departmental Director, and the partner school director, without a sustainable
funding structure of their own, the MENFP will likely be unable to honor these
commitments in a systemic way.
In response to these four challenges, members of the created CMEs frequently
acted as a facilitator between CARE and these partner school directors to ensure
continued collaboration. They took the initiative at times to organize and lead
meetings between CARE and the directors or simply approached the directors
directly. In this way, they showed a clear leadership on education and provided
solutions for community mobilization and partnership challenges at the municipal
level.

P4L Experience for 2015-2016

The second round of identification and enrollment for the 2015-2016 cycle, which
began in April 2015 and nearing completion now, continues to reveal that
partnership, specifically at the community level, is a powerful and necessary
strategy to address the identification, enrollment, and retention of OOSGB and
achieve sustainable education in Haiti, especially when catalyzed by local
leadership in the form of Municipal Education Commissions. Unfortunately, however,
unmet material, economic, and other needs of community partners (CMEs, schools,
program beneficiaries and their families) impedes the potential of the CMEs to be
an effective local leadership structure in education.
Working through the CMEs and public schools continued to be the most
effective component of the identification process for the 2015-2016. Based
on project learning from last year, CARE began tracking how the P4L team identified
each OOSC during this reporting cycle. According to the data on 4011 OOSGB ( 1783
girls and 2228 boys) identified between April and August 2015, P4L identified
54.15% through school directors, notably public school directors; 9.72% through
the Municipal Education Commission leaders; 22.09% door-to-door, and
13.39% from other community partners such churches and womens
associations. Both door-to-door and access to other community partners is
often facilitated by the CMEs.
However, during the process of securing spots in school for the new cohort of
OOSGB, the P4L team experienced continued opposition from private schools
in particular that started surfacing as the 2014-2015 school year
progressed because of financial constraints. Because of this continued
challenge related to resource needs, P4L had to make the decision to limit adding
any new private schools as official partners.
Beyond the private school directors, some CMEs and public school directors
were also hopeful that P4Ls interventions would bring more resources to
OOSGB and partner schools, as they continue to expect uniforms and text books
9

for children as well as refurbishment and material for the schools, despite
communications about the limits of P4Ls resources. The latter is compounded
by the MENFPs continued delays in national commitments that would have largely
fulfilled these needs. It is also likely compounded by the CMEs inability to operate
autonomously without the financial and technical support of CARE given their still
informal status in absence of legal framework that would provide a governmentmandated operating budget. Unfortunately, this frustration based on unmet needs
has impacted the community partners motivation for supporting the identification
process to some extent this year.
The identification process also faced a unique challenge this year: parliamentary
elections. Notably, this political activity which is often volatile in Haiti
undermined the CMEs capacity to function and subsequently their ability
to participate in mobilizing communities in the OOSGB identification
process. As mentioned previously, CME have no formal legal framework, leaving
them particularly vulnerable to whims of political parties and campaigns of
individual members. In absence of formal institutionalization, the CMEs are often
seen more as individual members particularly during times of electoral activity. This
further sheds light on the potential and current limitations of the CMEs to act as a
catalyzing force to mobilize communities and partners around education at the local
level.

Findings from P4L M&E Systems

To put the OOSGB identification and enrollment process into context, the P4L
baseline study found that, on average, household education expenditures
represent 58.7% of total household expenditures, 59% rural and 58% urban.
This is extremely troubling because it points to the vulnerability of a childs
education in light of the many other basic needs that a household must cover. It
also indicates how unlikely it is that the child will remain in school. To put this in
context, a study conducted by UNESCO around average household spending on
education in 15 African countries showed that the highest average percentage of
household income spent on education was for Benin in 2003 at 9.6% 16! Haitis
average is more than five times as high while considered the poorest
country in the Western hemisphere. Overall, this economic reality is the
backdrop that drives the resource-related obstacles faced when mobilizing
communities even when under the leadership of the promising CME structure at the
local level.
Anecdotal experience of the P4L staff, the P4L attendance tracking system, and the
P4L baseline study show that persistence and retention are the biggest challenges
in the Haitian education system with children engaging in a continual cycle of
starting and stopping from one year to the next and often with the same year.
Although outside the scope of this paper to discuss in detail, retention is ultimately
the key indicator of success of the P4L program. Beyond the economic reasons for
which children do not persist and complete school, notably parents inability to pay
16 UNESCO. Dakar Office. Household Education Spending: An Analytical and Comparative Perspective
for Fifteen African Countries. 2012.

10

education-related expenses throughout the year or the childs participation in the

workforce to help support his/her family, the P4L baseline study also revealed a
deeply rooted disconnect for parents between the ritual of enrollment and
continued attendance to ensure the child passes exams to move on a grade and
stay in school. We predict that another year of experience will provide valuable
lessons in how the community, specifically the CME, will also be vital to the
persistence and retention of children.
In sum, the previous sub-sections have shown that P4L would have been unable to
place so many OOSGB in school to date without community mobilization and
partnership, particularly under the CMEs decentralized education leadership. In this
way, partnership, to address the issue of access to education in Haiti is a powerful
alternative to unsustainable subsidy programs. However, the spirit of solidarity for
sustainable education outcomes, in this case for OOSGB, even when catalyzed by
local leadership has limits in light of the acute economic and institutional limitations
of communities where we work, including for the CMEs. In the section below, we
will explore how P4L has begun to address these limitations, particularly of the
CMEs, and ways forward to ensure a consolidation of local leadership that can
harness community clout for sustainable education outcomes.

11

III.

Ways forward to achieve consolidation of

decentralized education leadership through CMEs

Decentralized education leadership in the form of the CME is in its nascent stage.
While P4L experience has shown this structure to be effective in mobilizing the
community around identifying and enrolling OOSGB in school, our experience has
also revealed obstacles to their achievement of full autonomy and consolidation.
The obstacles are primarily linked to the absence of a formal legal recognition. In
other words, their existence has to date not been passed into law. CMEs are facing a
deeply entrenched centralized education system where are types of decisions
generally come from above in Port-au-Prince. This may likely explain why despite
requirements for decentralized education leadership found in the Haitian
Constitution, the National Education Pact 2010-2030, and the MENFPs Operating
Plan for 2010-2015, parliament has neither passed the existence of CMEs into law
nor made significant progress towards this end.
The absence of any legally binding framework limits the CMEs ability to take
binding decisions related to education at the local level. Operating without an
institutionalized legal framework also leaves them vulnerable to political changes.
This was seen clearly with the disruption caused by parliamentary campaigning and
elections during the OOSGB identification process for 2015-2016. It also limits
needed support both financially and technically from the central level. CMEs will
only receive an annual budget once passed into law.
During the CME creation process in P4L operating zones, P4L has provided the
needed technical and financial support in absence of a government-sponsored
budget. Conscious of unsustainability, CARE has been working in collaboration with
the MENFP at the central level on CME development to document the successes of
the experience. In turn, the idea is to use learning gained through P4L to conduct
evidence-based advocacy with parliament and other decision-makers to pass the
CME structure into law. A larger movement around this issue has already begun,
evidenced by the following:

In March 2015, the MENFPs Directorate of Support for Private Education and
Partnership (DAEPP17) sought an experience sharing meeting with CARE on
P4Ls establishment of local management structures or as the Ministry calls
it, proximity management, which entails both CMEs and School
Management Committees (ADPEPs18). According to the Haitian Training
Institute on Education Sciences (IHFOSED), Proximity management is a
reorganization of the division of responsibilities and powers in education,
from being top to bottom to bottom to top for more efficient mobilization
and cohesion. The establishment of local management structures is a

17 Direction dAppui a lEnseignement Priv et du Partenariat Directorate of Support for Private

Education and Partnership

18 Associations des Directeurs, Professeurs, Elves et Parents (Associations of Directors, Teachers,

Students, and Parents)

12

process of strengthening and implementation of democratic foundations in

schools and in the community19." As a result of this meeting, the MENFP
invited CARE/P4L to lead the organization of a proximity management
campaign during the months of May and June 2015 in schools where P4L
operates to bring awareness to the importance of decentralized education
leadership. The goal is to use this first experience as pilot for future scale up
nationally.
Both the initial sharing meeting and consequent campaign under the
leadership of CARE have provoked strong reflections and collaboration from
other NGO members of the Education Commission of CLIO (CEC) and other
important education actors in Haiti such as UNICEF. For example, UNICEF
recently commissioned IHFOSED to conduct a study on CMEs and how to
institutionalize them.
Nevertheless, the DAEPP is concerned that if the support by diverse actors is
not aligned with a national strategy, it may produce a boomerang effect, by
passing the system in a situation of non-governance to a situation of
ungovernability. Consequently, the MENFP requested once again the support
of CARE to organize a national workshop for September 9-10, 2015 to bring
various education actors together to examine the challenges, problems and
prospects for establishment of CMEs nationally, develop tools for modeling
the process of setting up functioning CMEs, and to devise a strategy for
institutionalizing CMEs through a legal framework. However, the Ministry
cancelled on September 8, 2015 stating that the start of the school
year 2015-2015 was facing an economic crisis that required the
immediate attention of the Minister and that the urgent situation
would take precedence over the workshop.
As national workshop cancelation illustrates, despite the Ministrys central level
commitment, a dire economic situation exists as the most fundamental aspect of its
education systemback to schoolis in financial jeopardy. The way forward now is
to focus on using (1) the learning at the local level gathered through P4L, (2) the
growing social movement by diverse education actors around the issues, and (3)
the central level MENFP commitment to lobby parliament to institutionalize this
decentralized leadership structure technically, operationally, and financially by
passing it into law. Once legally recognized, CMEs will enjoy their own allocation
from the national budget, ensuring that local education leadership has sustainable
funding. On a final note, the National Fund for Education exists in Haiti, financed
with already levied taxes on remittances and international phone calls. However, its
use for the express purpose of education needs to become law as well. P4L will be
using the growing momentum around the CME to also advocate for the
larger sustainable funding for education at the national level that will also
in principle alleviate many of the resource based needs of the
communities where P4L operates and beyond in Haiti.

IV.

Conclusion

19 Institut Hatien de Formation en Sciences de lEducation (IHFOSED). Document cadre de mise en

uvre des commissions municipales dducation, 2015, pg. 27.

13

This paper has shown the power of partnership, community mobilization, and the
overall role of diverse actors to ensure access to education for out-of-school children
and the nascent potential that CMEs show in leading these education efforts linked
to OOSGB in a manner that is more sustainable than previous subsidy-based
approaches. However, our experience also has illustrated that acute material and
economic needs of community and governmental partners coupled with the overall
drastic backdrop of extreme poverty and education expenses versus overall
household expense act as significant challenges to the full success of locally led
community mobilization for education. For decentralized education leadership to be
consolidated in such a way that favors sustainable outcomes for children in Haiti,
commitment at the central level to institutionalize and fund structures such as the
CME is necessary. Such commitment will likely need to be tied to a larger
commitment to sustainable education funding, specifically the National Education
Fund. P4L will continue to push forward with garnering collaboration at all levels to
create a powerful enough movement to secure the needed engagement by
decision-makers in Port-au-Prince.

14