Interference: a letter from the French ambassador to Haiti sparks debate

French Ambassador Fabrice Mauriès expresses his preference for language policy for Haiti in a letter to the Minister of National Education, a copy of which was obtained by AyiboPost. Sources close to the ministry denounce “interference”

In a correspondence received by the Ministry of National Education and Vocational Training (MENFP) on October 5, 2023, the French ambassador, Fabrice Mauriès, recalled “France’s commitment to bilingual education” for Haiti.

This education, the diplomat continues, “must guide the educational and personal development of each student to help him become an enlightened citizen.”

According to Mauriès, it is this “principle which guides and will continue to guide our bilateral cooperation in educational matters.”

This letter from the ambassador reflects his disagreement with Haiti’s official linguistic policy, according to three sources close to the MENFP.

The Ministry of National Education maintains that it wants to move away from bilingualism to promote “multilingualism” with Creole as the only language of instruction in the first years of Haitian schools.

According to one of the sources, the correspondence from French diplomacy communicates a “clear and direct threat” against future financing partnerships with French cooperation.

“Some French officials in Haiti are mistaken about the century and the country,” comments one of the sources close to the ministry. The weight of France’s colonial past makes the diplomat’s intervention inopportune, according to sources close to the MENFP.

This letter from the ambassador reflects his disagreement with Haiti’s official linguistic policy, according to three sources close to the MENFP.

“Can you imagine a Haitian ambassador to France sending a letter to the French Ministry of Education to tell them his preference for language teaching?” asks one of the sources. “This is simply unacceptable interference in the internal policies of another country,” she says.

Ambassador Mauriès’ correspondence came in response to a message posted on Xformerly Twitter, by former Minister of Education Nesmy Manigat on September 21, 2023.

Publication on X (Twitter) from former Haitian Minister of National Education Nesmy Manigat on September 21, 2023.

In this tweet, the current head of the Prime Minister’s office Garry Conille announced the summoning of the heads of a school in Nippes after a student was given a French-language assignment.

The child had to write dozens of lines: “Creole is forbidden in the establishment.”

“Creole is forbidden in the establishment”: Pensum imposed on a schoolboy in the Nippes department in Haiti. | © Nesmy Manigat sur X

The content of the ambassador’s letter “is common sense,” Renauld Govain, dean of the Faculty of Applied Linguistics, told AyiboPost. However, the linguist considers the correspondence “a mistake” whose occurrences remain “commonplace in Haiti.”

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The controversial letter from the French ambassador comes at a time when Haiti is underinvesting in education.

Barely 10% of the national budget is allocated to the MENFP in the current fiscal year. Jamaica or the Dominican Republic, two neighboring countries with higher incomes, spend double that.

For its investment budget as well as strategic projects, the ministry must count on the support of foreign partners.

Since 2021, for example, French cooperation has supported the curricular reform of the 3rd cycle of fundamental and secondary education in Haiti through the project called “New civic education looking towards the future”.

As part of the initiative, Haitian experts were to travel to France to work with French specialists on the curriculum for several subjects.

Approached by AyiboPost, two Haitian participants in the project testify to professional working climates although tensions have sometimes arisen over content relating to social issues.

Can we imagine a Haitian ambassador to France sending a letter to the French Ministry of Education to tell them his preference in terms of language teaching?

The interest of French Ambassador Fabrice Mauriès in the issue of language and his perception as an “anti-Creole” figure was not well received by most participants.

In October 2023, some Haitian experts assigned to develop the Creole language curriculum who were due to travel to France as part of this program were refused visas.

Other specialists assigned to mathematics and experimental sciences were able to travel with the same documentation submitted to the French consulate, according to email exchanges reviewed by AyiboPost.

Steps taken by the institutions involved in the project helped facilitate the trip.

But most of the Creole experts stopped by the French embassy see the hand of the diplomat Mauriès behind their blockage.

The ambassador was contacted for comment by email on February 19, 2024. This article will be updated if he responds.

“The former colonizer should not have had a say in Haiti’s language education, but the state and the private sector are not investing in the sector,” one of the project’s leaders told AyiboPost. Like other executives cited in this article, he requested anonymity to avoid reprisals.

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Creole — the language spoken by the majority of the country — gained official language status alongside French 183 years after Haiti’s independence.

In practice, French – the preferred communication tool of public administration – remains much more valued.

Much of Haiti’s literary and scientific wealth is written in French, but barely 10% of the country’s inhabitants can speak the language.

To explain this state of affairs, several researchers point to a linguistic apartheid used to exclude citizens. This apartheid would explain the underinvestment in Creole over the years.

A 1979 reform provided for the use of Creole as the language of instruction up to the 4th year.

But the work needed to implement it nationally, train teachers and put in place teaching materials in Creole remains insufficient, according to three MENFP executives.

In practice, French – the preferred communication tool of public administration – remains much more valued.

Apart from teachers in privileged schools, generally in large cities, the majority of teachers in the country’s 17,000 establishments do not speak French – a language they are supposed to teach and in which teaching materials are mainly written, analyses a ministry official.

40% of children drop out of school before finishing the 9th grade, and very few make it to university.

According to experts, inadequate learning of a foreign language is among the main causes of academic failure in the country.

“Bilingualism has resulted in a relationship of diglossia, of domination of French over Creole,” Khadim Sylla, coordinator of the education sector at the office of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in Port-au-Prince, analyses to AyiboPost.

From 2022, UNESCO will support an educational reform introduced by former minister Nesmy Manigat.

This reform must involve the development of a curricular framework, according to the heads of the two institutions.

According to Sylla, “experiences and research” show that a child educated in his mother tongue acquires skills more easily and can learn other languages more quickly. UNESCO, he says, is “a stakeholder in multilingualism.”

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While France invests little in Creole or education, other embassies and international institutions contribute to the development of Haiti’s native language.

Since 2018, Spanish cooperation has invested nearly nine million US dollars in education in Haiti, according to an expenditure table communicated to AyiboPost.

Children’s learning is done more safely and quickly in their mother tongue, according to Guillermo Garrido Novoa, Minister Counselor at the Spanish Embassy.

“It seems important to us to support its standardization in schools both as a taught language and as a language of instruction, especially in the early years,” Novoa continued to AyiboPost.

The United States Agency for International Development presents itself to AyiboPost as a pioneer in mother tongue teaching in Haiti.

USAID has funded several projects in this regard over the past decade.

Providing basic education to children in their mother tongue “honors their right to learn in a language that is familiar to them,” Jean Lindor, director of USAID’s Office of Education in Haiti, told AyiboPost.

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Upon his entry into the MENFP in 2022, the former Minister of Education Nesmy Manigat stopped funding works in French for the first four years of Haitian schools.

These books cost the state up to 600 million gourdes per year.

At the same time, the ministry is introducing a single book in Creole for the first two years of primary school.

The initiative, partly paid for by the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank, is expected to be replicated annually until the sixth year.

Printed in a million copies, the unique book is to be distributed to all schools in the country.

Almost a dozen versions from different publishers exist. It is not clear how many books were actually printed, how many schools received them, or how many teachers were trained.

Upon his entry into the MENFP in 2022, the former Minister of Education Nesmy Manigat stopped funding works in French for the first four years of Haitian schools.

At the same time, these decisions are not unanimous.

Some educators criticize the educational value of single books developed in less than a year.

Minister Nesmy Manigat has a “desire to move in the right direction, but he sometimes does not have the necessary consultations,” analyses the dean of the Faculty of Applied Linguistics, Renauld Govain.

The expert criticizes the use of French as the language of instruction from the 5th year. He considers it necessary to use Creole as the only language of instruction for the entire basic cycle, from the first year to Secondary 1.

Then, he said, certain subjects would be taught in French alongside Creole.

The majority of former Minister Manigat’s opponents admit the need to reform Haiti’s linguistic education.

A good reform will contribute, they agree, to a to increase the number of French speakers — 300 million worldwide — and to allow more Haitians to enjoy the cultural richness of the country and the Francophonie.

Although they allow the MENFP to invest in certain important projects, donations from foreign representations and institutions are subject to the wishes of the donors, as well as to their current priorities.

“The current method of financing represents a handicap to the implementation of education in the interest of the country,” a MENFP executive concluded to AyiboPost.

Par Widlore Merancourt

Cover image edited by AyiboPost featuring French Ambassador to Haiti Fabrice Mauriès, signatory of a controversial letter received by Haiti’s former Minister of National Education Nesmy Manigat on October 5, 2023. | © Original portrait: Marc Henley Augustin/Loop Haiti

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