(2014-09) Decree on the Procedure for Granting and Managing Study Scholarships for Civil Servants
Summary — Signed by Prime Minister Laurent Salvador Lamothe on 10 September 2014 and published in Le Moniteur No. 179 (19 September 2014), this decree creates a Commission de Gestion des Bourses d'Études (CGBE), chaired by the Foreign Affairs ministry with OMRH as secretariat, to coordinate, vet and track all study scholarships granted to civil servants. It sets eligibility rules, a 30 percent quota for women, obligations for scholarship recipients including a three-year post-study service commitment, and reimbursement rules for those who default.
Key Findings
- Creates the Commission de Gestion des Bourses d'Études (CGBE) chaired by Foreign Affairs, vice-chaired by Planning/External Cooperation, with OMRH as secretariat and MEF as a member.
- Sets a 30 percent quota for women and positive discrimination for persons with disabilities in scholarship allocation.
- Eligibility requires 2+ years of seniority, passing a selection competition, and a minimum evaluation score of 4 in the last two review periods.
- Beneficiaries of degree-granting scholarships must serve the state 3 years post-training or reimburse the full training cost, pro-rated if they served at least 2 years.
- Non-compliant scholarship holders are subject to recovery through the courts under the 17 August 1955 law on state scholarship obligations.
Full Description
The decree responds to a stated need to reform Haiti's scholarship management system toward greater transparency, and it creates the CGBE with representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (chair), the Ministry of Planning and External Cooperation (vice-chair), the Ministry of National Education, MEF, and OMRH (secretariat); the commission is formally constituted by administrative letter of the Prime Minister. Scholarships are non-reimbursable financing for training and skills development of civil servants, available to staff in initial training, advanced training cycles or continuing professional training, and administrations must respect a 30 percent quota reserved for women and a positive-discrimination principle for persons with disabilities. Eligibility requires at least two years' seniority, success in a selection competition, and a performance evaluation score of at least 4 (out of presumably 5) in the two most recent evaluation periods. Applications go through OMRH to the CGBE, which must justify any refusal; beneficiaries must report status changes such as abandoning studies, prolonged illness or change of residence, and can have their scholarship suspended for fraud, non-enrollment, or repeated exam failure. The core obligation is that a beneficiary who received a degree-granting scholarship must return to Haiti and serve the state for three years; failing that, they must reimburse the full training cost (calculated by OMRH's Coordonnateur Général), or a pro-rated amount if they served at least two years, with recovery through the courts if necessary under the 17 August 1955 law on scholarship-holder obligations. The state commits to reinstating the civil servant to their post or an equivalent one after training. This decree sits alongside the 2015 training/professional-development decree, the 2013 recruitment-competition and performance-evaluation decrees, and OMRH's founding 2009 decree, all part of the same institutional reform sequence for the Haitian civil service also present in this MEF tier-1 batch.