It’s back-to-school day in Haiti, but teachers have fled and the homeless occupy schools

Jacqueline Charles, Johnny Fils-Aimé
Tue, October 1, 2024 

Roc Auxène walked the premises of one of the oldest schools, Lycée Pinchinat de Jacmel in this sun-swept southern city on a recent afternoon, wondering where to begin.

Several of the classrooms are condemned. Fissures from the 2010 earthquake, more than 14 years ago, still have not been repaired and hundreds of desks and chairs that were ordered more than three years ago are still stuck in Port-au-Prince, three hours away, through gang-controlled territories.

“We have a need of 7,050 school benches, 971 chairs and 227 chalkboards,” said Auxène, the ministry of education’s director for Southeast Haiti. “I’ve been director for three years and because of the lack of security, the ministry of education has never been able to get us benches and the director before me never received any.”


If that’s not daunting enough, Auxène is also looking to fill between 500 and 600 vacancies at the government-owned schools in the rural coastal region. The positions include more than 250 teaching vacancies along with school secretaries, inspectors and other employees who have either died, retired or migrated to the United States. An estimated 30% of teachers across Haiti have migrated to the U.S. and elsewhere, which means some classrooms will not have a teacher on Tuesday. In other cases, teachers have been waiting for years for paychecks because their paperwork still has not been properly filed in the system.

“Things are very difficult,” said Auxène, himself a history teacher.

Roc Auxène, a history teacher and regional director for the Ministry of Education for the southeast region of Haiti, walks across the yard at Lycée Pinchinat of Jacmel on August 24, 2024. The school is among several UNICEF, the United Nations’ child welfare agency, is trying to repair to accommodate thousands displaced students fleeing gang violence.More

As the new school year in Haiti starts on Tuesday, the country’s education system remains broken. The government and partners like UNICEF, which has been sounding the alarm about the impact of the gang crisis on children, face enormous challenges: Hundreds of thousands of children have joined the ranks of the displaced, schools in the capital and surrounding cities remain occupied by the homeless and regional ministry of education directors like Auxène try to do a lot with very little.

“We can’t even begin to count how many students we are getting,” he said. “With the support of UNICEF, we’ve started to do a lot of work; we’re making some repairs in schools and hope to put up tents for some temporary classrooms so we can accommodate the students.”

In the Great South area alone, which includes the Southeast, Southwest, Nippes and Grand’Anse regions, there are more than 100,000 school-aged children who have been forced to flee their homes because of gang violence. At least a quarter of those students, 25,000, are in the southeast, which includes the seaside town of Jacmel.

“For many families in Haiti, the start of the school year is a cherished moment of hope and renewal, but with more than 270,000 people fleeing to the south, displaced families are facing daunting challenges in securing education for their children,” Bruno Maes, who ended his term as UNICEF’s representative in Haiti over the weekend, said when he visited the region in September. “Local services are struggling to accommodate the influx of displaced school-aged children as well because of the disruptions from ongoing violence.”

A classroom at Lycée Pinchinat de Jacmel school. Despite the general state of disrepair the building will open for classes on Tuesday, October 1, 2024.

Over the summer, UNICEF’s education officers fanned out across the country to help rehabilitate damaged schools, set up temporary learning spaces and provide educational materials. The United Nations child welfare agency also facilitated cash transfers to affected families to help cover school-related expenses. But Maes and his team acknowledged there just isn’t enough money to go around. A U.N. appeal for $674 million in humanitarian assistance for Haiti still remains underfunded at barely 30% of the total.

As Auxène toured the combined middle and high school in the center of Jacmel, he was joined by UNICEF Education Officer Wadler Raymond, who is responsible for the Great South. The school was founded in 1860, though its building is more recent.

Raymond said UNICEF was checking out the structure for repairs and to see how it could accommodate some of the displaced students in the city. The faded building seemed more like a candidate for a tear down than a rehab. Its light fixtures didn’t work, the concrete stairs were crumbling and there were deep cracks even in the parts that had not been condemned.


The entrance to aclassroom at Lycée Pinchinat school in Jacmel. Despite the general state of disrepair the building will open for classes.

Last school year the building managed to accommodate 500 students. This year there is no telling what enrollment will look like. That depends on whether parents can afford costs of school uniforms, books, fees and transportation. And in the case of students forced out of their homes because of the gang violence, it also depends on whether they were able to get their files from their last school and take required year-end exams.

“Some parents when you ask them for a telephone number, it’s the phone number of a neighbor because they don’t have one or they say they have none,” Auxène said. “They are dealing with many problems.”

First graders attend class during summer classes at École National Louis Borno de Léogâne in Léogâne, Haiti. Many of the students were displaced by the gang violence in Port-au-Prince and neighboring Gressier.

While UNICEF is actively overseeing initiatives to ensure that displaced children have the opportunity to return to school, money remains a problem.

As Tuesday approached, the agency still had not secured the funds to make repairs to Lycée Pinchinat de Jacmel, although Raymond, the UNICEF officer, said they did manage to put 10 tents in the yard to use as classrooms.
Back-to-school help

Haiti’s armed gangs have forced more than 703,000 people out of their homes, many of them school-aged children who along with their parents have sought shelter in classrooms and school yards.

On Monday, Prime Minister Garry Conille took to social media to share a graphic of the government’s ongoing efforts to help by providing 2 million free books in Creole and 20,000 gourdes — about $150 — to 200,000 parents.

“Education and quality work for the youth is one of the government’s priorities to create hope and fight insecurity,” he said on X, adding that the ministry of education has been given a 24% budget increase this year.

A first grader boy uses a small tree branch as a pointer as he recites in front of class during summer classes at Ecole National Louis Borno de Léogâne in Léogâne, Haiti.

The money, Conille said, will be used to train more young teachers, distribute more books and provide food for school cafeterias with the help of the World Food Program. He’s expected to travel to the South by helicopter Tuesday to officially launch the reopening of the school year.

“We won’t be satisfied until all children have the same chance to go to school from the first day, everywhere in the country,” he said.
People living in schools

On Monday, the minister in charge of humanitarian affairs, Herwill Gaspard, visited one of the dozens of schools in Port-au-Prince currently occupied by people who have fled their homes. Gaspard said there are 39 schools across the capital occupied by people chased out of their homes by armed gangs and the government is working with the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration to relocate them.

He visited the encampment at the National School Argentine Bellegarde on Ruelle Vaillant, which has 1,580 people sleeping in its classrooms and elsewhere on the grounds.

Gaspard acknowledged that the process of relocating people is difficult. One reason is money. The 50,000 Haitian gourdes — about $380 — IOM is offering to entice them to leave isn’t enough to put a roof over their heads.

“We ask them, ‘What is 50,000 gourdes going to do for us?’” said David Desrosier, one of the displaced. “It’s bizarre. There are people here with four, five children.”

Derosier said he recently went searching for a place to rent. Everywhere he went in the capital, owners of rental properties were asking for prices in U.S. dollars, between $700 and $800, in a country where the majority of people live on less than $2 a day.

Myrlène Baptiste, who has also been displaced, questioned the amount the U.N. agency is offering. “What are we going to do with 50,000 gourdes? 50,000 gourdes cannot pay rent.”