Haiti - Education : 16th Annual International Mother Language Day
Friday, at a joint press conference at the Faculty of Applied Linguistics at the eve of the 16th Annual International Mother Language Day (21 February), the Ministry of National Education, the Academy of Haitian Creole and the Faculty of Applied Linguistics (FLA), have expressed with one voice on the promotion and defense of the Haitian native language,by a set of initiatives.
In his speech, Nesmy Manigat, Minister of Education declared, "There will be noHaitian-quality schools as long as teachers and students will not master their native language, that is to say, the Creole." Giving the guarantees to hose responsible for the FLA and to the Haitian Academicians they can relies on the financial support of the Ministry to conduct their research.
Already, the Ministry provides funding for translation into Creole, of all important documents of the Wikipedia website dedicated to Haiti. A mandate will be entrusted to the Academy of Haitian Creole and to the Language faculty, which will be responsible for implementing the project, which will enable all, but especially to students and Haitian teachers to have access to an important source of information, scientific, historical and literary in their native language. Furthermore, the Minister Manigat also plans to support the creation of a website "Haitipédia" disseminating and updating information relating exclusively to Haiti.
In addition, Nesmy Manigat invited the FLA and the Academy to support the Ministry's actionscommitted to educational reform underway, including the curriculum reform, which implies linguistic developments with a higher prominence of Creole in education in taking into account that globally known and recognized experience, prove that education in the mother tongue helps children to better control subjects, but also to learn more easily other languages.
Pauris Jean-Baptiste, President of the Board of the Academy Creole presented some key objectives that will guide the actions of the Academy : make penetrate Creole in public institutions, terminology development in the various fields of activity, defeat the ideology that build Creole as a barrier to learning and functioning of public institutions and support the State in drafting in Creole its documents and the translation of existing laws.
