Against Apartheid in Education and in Linguistics: The Case of Haitian Creole in Neo-Colonial Haiti

Michel DeGraff writes the foreword to Decolonizing Foreign Language Education, edited by Donaldo Macedo and published by Routledge in 2019. He describes the use of French as the language of instruction in Haiti as linguistic apartheid and elite closure, because virtually every Haitian speaks Kreyòl while at most 10 percent speak French. He separates the learning of French from learning in French, and argues that the second practice blocks monolingual Kreyòl speakers from education, administration and justice.

He notes that French and Kreyòl have been co-official languages by law since 1987, with Kreyòl recognized as the sole national language. He states that the aim is to remove the barriers imposed on Kreyòl-speaking children and that learning French remains a worthwhile academic endeavor.