School Services Strengthening Project: Baseline Report

The baseline for the impact evaluation of Haiti's school services strengthening project, which tested whether handheld technology could make school inspection and monitoring work. It covers 200 schools across the Nord and Nord-Est, split into treatment and control groups of 100 each, and its value is the state of those schools before anything was tried.

The physical baseline is stark: of the 200 schools, only 34 percent have a drinking water point and only 14 percent have a library or book room pupils can use. Management structures are more present than facilities, with school management committees in 71 percent of schools. Teacher qualifications cluster at the secondary leaving certificate, 30 percent at the first part of the baccalaureate and 31 percent at the second, while 66 percent of directors hold at least the second part and 43 percent have gone on to university study. In 15 percent of schools it is the secretary or another person, rather than the director, who tracks teacher attendance.

The finding that matters for policy is the one the report draws itself. Pupil absenteeism is high at 24 percent, similar to many developing countries, but teacher absenteeism is much lower, and the report notes that this favourable teacher presence does not translate into better pupil performance. Its inference is that the explanation lies inside the classroom, in pedagogy as well as instructional time, rather than in attendance. On the household side, 57 percent of pupils report help with schoolwork at home, 76 percent report having attended some form of preschool, 74 percent come from households where the head is literate in at least one language, and 91 percent walk to school against 4 percent by bicycle or motorcycle and 5 percent by car.