Education
Although public education is free, private and parochial schools provide around 75% of educational programs offered. Less than 65% of children of primary school age are actually enrolled. At the secondary level, the figure drops to 55%. Of those enrolled in primary school, 63% will complete it. On average, it takes 16 years to produce a single graduate of the 6-year cycle. Though Haitians place a high value on education, few can afford to send their children to secondary school. Remittances sent by Haitians living abroad are important in paying educational costs.
In the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince, home to 2.21 million of Haiti's 8.5 million people, only 23 percent of adults have completed secondary school with 16 percent passing the state graduation exam. More than half (53.5 percent) of children aged 5–17 do not attend school.
Read more about this topic: Demographics Of Haiti
Famous quotes containing the word education:
“Do we honestly believe that hopeless kids growing up under the harsh new rules will turn out to be chaste, studious, responsible adults? On the contrary, by limiting welfare, job training, education and nutritious food, won’t we plant the seeds for another bumper crop of out-of-wedlock moms, deadbeat dads and worse?”
—Richard B. Stolley (20th century)
“I envy neither the heart nor the head of any legislator who has been born to an inheritance of privileges, who has behind him ages of education, dominion, civilization, and Christianity, if he stands opposed to the passage of a national education bill, whose purpose is to secure education to the children of those who were born under the shadow of institutions which made it a crime to read.”
—Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825–1911)
“I say that male and female are cast in the same mold; except for education and habits, the difference is not great.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)