Tout Timoun Ap Li (ToTAL): Recommendations for MENFP and Education Partner Nationwide Rollout of the Early Grade Reading Program

EdData II Tout Timoun Ap Li - ToTAL (All Children Reading) Report on recommendations for MENFP and education partner post‐activity nationwide rollout of early grade reading program, REVISED Port-au-Prince, Saint Marc, and Cap-Haïtien Development Corridors EdData II Technical and Managerial Assistance, Task Number 18 EdData II Contract Number EHC-E-00-0004-00 Task Order Number AID-521-BC-12-00002 Legend Main Rivers November 2014 Tout Timoun Ap Li - ToTAL (All Children Reading) Report on recommendations for MENFP and education partner post‐activity nationwide rollout of early grade reading program, REVISED Port-au-Prince, Saint Marc, and Cap-Haïtien Development Corridors Prepared for Fabiola Lopez-Minatchy, Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR), USAID/Haiti United States Agency for International Development Prepared by RTI International 3040 Cornwallis Road Post Office Box 12194 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-2194 RTI International is a trade name of Research Triangle Institute. The authors’ views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government. Table of Contents Abbreviations ..................................................................................................................iv Executive Summary ........................................................................................................ 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 2 Broaden and Deepen MENFP Capacity Internally and through Partnerships ................. 2 Geographic Rollout Strategy ........................................................................................... 4 Local Organizations Can Help Extend Reach ................................................................. 5 Further Materials Development ....................................................................................... 7 Bilingual Method and Approach—Prioritize Haitian Creole while Ensuring Competency in French ......................................................................................... 7 Continue use of EGRA and SSME .................................................................................. 7 Tangerine-Based Data Gathering for M&E and Project Management ............................. 9 Teacher Quality: Connect, Support, and Train Current Teachers while Attracting Qualified Professionals to Teaching ..................................................................... 9 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 10 Annex I: Descriptions of Potential Partners ................................................................... 12 RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED iii Abbreviations BAEH Bureau Anglican de l’Éducation en Haïti BEMHEG Bureau des Eglises Méthodistes pour l’Education Générale (Office of the Methodist Church of Haiti for General Education) CAFT Le Centre d’Apprentissage et de Formation pour la Transformation CEEC Commission Episcopale des Écoles Catholiques (Episcopal Commission for Catholic Education) CONFEPIH Confédération des Écoles Privées Indépendantes d’Haïti (Confederation of Independent Private Schools of Haiti) CRS Catholic Relief Services DCQ MENFP: Direction de Curriculum et de Qualité (Directorate of Curriculum and Quality) DDE MENFP: Direction Départementale d’Education (Departmental Directorate of Education) DEF MENFP: Direction de l’Enseignement Fondamental (Directorate of Primary Teaching) DFP MENFP: Direction de la Formation et du Perfectionnement (Directorate of Training and Development) EFA Education for All EFACAP École Fondamentale d’Application, Centre d’Appui Pédagogique (Basic School of Education Application and Pedagogical Support Center) EGRA Early Grade Reading Assessment FEPH Fédérations des Écoles Protestantes d'Haïti (Federation of Protestant Schools of Haiti) FPN Le Fonds de Parrainage National (National Sponsorship Fund) FONHEP Fondation Haïtienne de l'Enseignement Privé (Haitian Foundation for Private Education) IFOS Institut de Formation du Sud (Institute of Training in the South) IT information technology IRC International Rescue Committee J/P HRO J/P Haitian Relief Organization KONEKTE Konesans e Konpetans Teknik M&E monitoring and evaluation MENFP Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle (National Ministry of Education and Professional Training) NGO nongovernmental organization RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED iv  PIH/ZL Partners in Health/Zanmi Lasante PDCL Plateforme de Développement des Compétences en Lecture (Platform for the Development of Reading Skills) SSME Snapshot of School Management Effectiveness ToTAL Tout Timoun Ap Li (All children Reading) UMCOR United Methodist Committee on Relief UPAG/FSE Université Publique de l’Artibonite aux Gonaïves/Faculté des Sciences Éducatives (Public University of Artibonite at Gonaïves/Faculty of Educational Science) USAID United States Agency for International D evelopment RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED v Executive Summary The following report describes RTI’s recommendations for nationwide rollout of an early grade reading program in Haiti. These recommendations are informed by implementation of the Tout Timoun Ap Li (ToTAL) applied research activity over the past two years and, as part of that, the preparation of a detailed capacity mapping report. The capacity mapping report surveyed and assessed the capacity of 253 local organizations in the Port-au-Prince, Saint-Marc, and Cap- Haïtien development corridors that have the potential to support early grade reading improvement; these included education organizations, civil society organizations, and businesses active in the education sector. Informed by its research and experience, RTI makes the following key recommendations for national rollout, described in more detail in subsequent sections of this report. 1. Partner with and build the capacity of the Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle (Haitian National Ministry of Education and Professional Training [MENFP]): Support the Ministry to independently manage a nationwide rollout. 2. Expand gradually: A careful, phased geographical rollout will be more successful than a more aggressive nationwide rollout. 3. Support and establish accountability for local organizations: Engage local organizations based on a realistic assessment of their capabilities, provide carefully designed capacity building, and hold them accountable for results. Working with a variety of diverse implementing partners, including local and international organizations, will enrich programming but also complicate implementation. 4. Continue curriculum development: Materials development and revision should be an on- going process and should progress into the higher primary grades. 5. Prioritize Haitian Creole but strengthen French: The curriculum must reflect a bilingual method and approach that prioritizes Creole while ensuring competency in French. 6. Expand Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA): Continue and extend the use of EGRA to monitor student learning gains over time. 7. Continue to apply Tangerine technology: Build upon the ToTAL project’s use of electronic (e.g., Tangerine-based) data gathering technology for monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and project management purposes. 8. Provide extensive, multi-faceted support to teachers: Improve teacher quality by connecting, supporting, and training current teachers while attracting qualified professionals to teaching. RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED 1 Introduction Unprecedented opportunities currently exist to improve early grade reading in Haiti. Important current political and social developments include the following:  Government support for early grade reading initiatives,  Strong consensus on the importance of learning to read in the mother tongue of Haitian Creole while also teaching literacy in French,  The availability of new Haitian Creole-language teaching and learning materials,  Substantial local capacity to conduct Early Grade Reading Assessments (EGRAs) to monitor early grade reading interventions, and  Increased capacity among local Haitian organizations to implement early grade reading interventions and assessments. Combined, these developments can support improved early grade reading and overall levels of literacy in the country. Drawing upon its experience in implementing large-scale early grade reading projects in Haiti and in other countries as well as the knowledge compiled through an extensive study of the capacity of educational organizations active in the Port-au-Prince, Saint- Marc, and Cap-Haïtien development corridors, RTI offers the following recommendations for the Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle (Haitian National Ministry of Education and Professional Training [MENFP]) and its education partners for a nationwide rollout of an early grade reading program. Broaden and Deepen MENFP Capacity Internally and through Partnerships The MENFP must be at the center of any effort to conduct a nationwide rollout of an early grade reading program in Haiti. RTI’s primary recommendation for national rollout is to foster close coordination and partnership between the MENFP and its partners in a way that allows for extensive capacity building and close coordination. For reasons related to Haiti’s unique history— including post-independence isolation as well as the combination of poverty and limited state capacity to provide essential services in the present—the current educational system is highly privatized. As the MENFP continues to strengthen its role in overseeing this diverse system, it should capitalize on existing resources outside of itself to plan, carry out, and evaluate program activities. Communication between the MENFP and development partners should be formalized through the establishment of joint planning meetings to be held at fixed intervals at the national and departmental levels. An important first step for nationwide rollout should be to develop a calendar of planning meetings with the appropriate departmental directorates of the MENFP. At the local level, it is essential to fully integrate the École Fondamentale d’Application, Centre d’Appui Pédagogique (Basic School of Education Application and Pedagogical Support Center [EFACAP]), using their facilities as venues for discussion, exchange, and sociocultural activities. RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED 2 Rollout will be further strengthened at the local level as the MENFP school inspectors and development partners directly engage with school management and school boards to set up reading structures in each area. High profile communication of project results will also be very important. For this reason, the implementing partners should hold regular conferences on literacy that include the MENFP and leading Haitian and international organizations. Such occasions provide the opportunity to present the latest research, exchange success stories, and build joint support for initiatives, and they have been proved successful at building and sustaining excitement about early grade reading among national-level policymakers. Continued engagement along these lines will be important to maintain momentum and ensure continued visibility and political will for early grade reading in Haiti. Although all branches of the MENFP should remain directly involved in early grade reading— including the Direction de l’Enseignement Fondamental (Directorate of Primary Teaching [DEF]), Direction de Curriculum et de Qualité (Directorate of Curriculum and Quality [DCQ]), and Direction de la Formation et du Perfectionnement (Directorate of Training and Development [DFP])—the nascent Plateforme de Développement des Compétences en Lecture (Platform for the Development of Reading Skills [PDCL]) requires particular consideration due to its potential to support a nationwide early grade reading program. To realize this potential, the PDCL will need to be integrated into departmental and local-level program activities. For this reason, RTI recommends that the MENFP establish a PDCL in each of the country’s scholastic departments to maintain the focus on early grade reading, share information, coordinate with other departments, and maintain the sense of urgency for improving literacy and early grade reading. Specific steps that the MENFP must take include the following:  Build the capacity and increase the numbers of MENFP inspectors so that they can more fully assume the responsibility for school visits and ongoing teacher observation, mentoring, and support.  Build capacity within braches of the MENFP to plan, fund, and administer early grade reading and other assessments to inform system improvement.  Continue developing and revising curriculum materials. As additional early grade reading textbooks and other learning materials are developed, it is essential for the MENFP to conduct technical design and development, review, editing, and negotiations with curriculum development firms. The MENFP is developing capacities within the PDCL, the DEF, the DCQ, and the Direction Générale (Directorate-General) level to carry out this essential work. However, to ensure that future curriculum development initiatives are worthwhile, the MENFP will need to fully assume accountability for the content of materials and their adoption at the classroom level.  Work with schools to ensure that textbooks, school supplies, and other necessary teaching and learning materials are effectively distributed to schools, monitoring use and student enrollment numbers as needed through the school year. RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED 3   Address key factors in the school environment and current approaches to education in Haiti that are not conducive to students learning, such as limited days of instruction.  Improve the quality of teacher preparation. The MENFP must work with development partners to ensure that teachers receive quality in-service training and coaching to increase their chances of successfully implementing the new reading program. Improved teacher selection and pre-service training to build a teacher corps ready to effectively carry out the reading program will also need to occur.  Continue community and student engagement activities, such as organized summer reading activities, that present opportunities for students to actively engage in reading in a fun, informal but structured, and meaningful way during the summer.  Make school-based health interventions available by coordinating with the Haitian Ministère de la Santé Publique et de la Population (Ministry of Public Health and Population [MSPP]) and its international and local partners to use the school system as a mechanism to deliver essential child health interventions while also ensuring access to the health interventions that improve educational outcomes such as deworming, school meal programs, vaccination, school-based malaria treatment, and vision screening combined with the provision of glasses.  Demand greater results not only from individual schools but also from leading local partners such as FONHEP and CEEC. These local partners have been active in the education sector at large scale for a long time and must be held accountable for achieving needed results.  Institutionalize the regular, detailed sharing of project progress within the MENFP in a way that builds capacity and responsibility for tracking progress. From the start, rollout results should be regularly communicated to the MENFP’s PDCL. At the departmental level, monthly review meetings should be established with the MENFP's technical directorates and the Directions Départementales d'Education (Departmental Directorates of Education [DDEs]) in the departments involved in the project, convened under the responsibility of the Directorate-General. The goal of these meetings should become joint planning and information sharing. In a carefully planned and staged process, relevant branches of the MENFP should gradually take more responsibility for system-wide M&E functions of tracking and reporting on results. Geographic Rollout Strategy A slow, steady expansion to other departments should be combined with an intensive effort to strengthen coaching and community mobilization to consolidate gains of the ToTAL program and adjust implementation approaches before starting a broader expansion. With the array of challenges and harsh realities that any early grade reading program in the Haitian context must face and adapt to, it is crucial that any national program seek to consolidate and strengthen what was accomplished under Project ToTAL while gradually expanding to new departments. RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED 4 The first step in increasing the reach of upcoming early grade reading programs is to expand to more schools within the current three-quarter footprint of ToTAL, with a strong priority given to former ToTAL control schools, pilot schools, and schools within the communities supported by ToTAL. Following that, the MENFP should expand into areas where local and international partner organizations have a strong presence, particularly areas where CEEC (with its extensive network of schools), Caritas (in Leogane and Gressier), and Concern (in the Saut-d’Eau) are involved. When the program is introduced to new departments and communities, the MENFP should initially identify communities where a strong partner could lead—such as Partners in Health/Zanmi Lasante (PIH/ZL) in the Central Plateau or the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Jacmel. Based on experience from the ToTAL project, RTI also recommends prioritizing urban areas, where a higher concentration of students and schools can be reached more readily and efficiently and where onsite verification and trouble-shooting can happen more quickly. For example, if the project is to expand into the Central Plateau, it could prioritize Mirebalais, Lascahobas, and Hinche before branching out into rural areas. Overall, expansion must be prioritized to areas where the project is more likely to succeed. In addition to the availability of a strong partner, it is also important to look at other criteria such as the level of buy-in and capacity of the local MENFP officials and branches; the level of interest at potential local schools and the strength of school management; and the willingness of parents to support their schools in the implementation of this program. Local Organizations Can Help Extend Reach Local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) play a very large role in education in Haiti and have much to contribute to a national rollout. However, from the pre-planning stages onward, it is crucial to include a realistic assessment of the local NGOs’ strengths and weaknesses to ensure that they are positioned to engage constructively in the national rollout. This realistic, objective assessment of capacity at the start of the project, combined with the identification and acknowledgement of specific capacity-building needs, is crucial to ensure effective implementation. A national rollout can benefit from partnerships with established education organizations that support networks of parochial or private schools. These organizations can benefit from capacity building such as systems strengthening and access to teacher training opportunities, coaching, and teaching and learning materials. These organizations must be held accountable for their results and must only be allowed to participate in a national rollout if they demonstrate willingness to work with other partners and are able to sign binding agreements outlining their responsibilities to the project in a clearly described way, so that progress can be objectively tracked and improvement assessed. Key organizations for consideration include CEEC, the Fédération des Écoles Protestantes d’Haïti (FEPH), the Confédération des Écoles Privées Indépendantes d’Haïti (CONFEPIH), the Bureau des Eglises Méthodistes pour l’Education Générale (BEMHEG), and the Bureau Anglican de l’Éducation en Haïti (BAEH). During the early phases of expansion, the national rollout should prioritize expansion through these existing RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED 5 networks. These networked organizations provide not only access to schools but also administrative capacity that must be supported and developed to better serve their large numbers of beneficiaries. A national program rollout provides an excellent opportunity to strengthen and modernize these important networks. The rollout approach must not be one of supporting multiple parallel structures between the MENFP and local private organizations but instead of close coordination and partnership, while allowing for competition between private organizations that can create incentives for improved performance and innovation. Among local education organizations, there are currently tremendous opportunities to improve the quality of implementation through synergistic partnerships. For example, while FONHEP and CEEC benefit from rich, longstanding networks of relationships with supported schools, these organizations have difficultly managing the flow of information to and from schools in a timely way as a result of weak internal M&E and information technology (IT) systems. Their capacity to capitalize on the availability of easy-to-use, web-based M&E systems and the impressive capacity of technologically savvy local organizations such as Institut de Formation du Sud (IFOS) can be built, however. Within the umbrella of a national rollout of an early grade reading program, IFOS could be engaged to work with CEEC and FONHEP in establishing web- based M&E systems that would help these organizations better serve their network’s schools and provide greater value to a national early grade reading program. International partners with experience in community mobilization—such as Catholic Relief Services (CRS) or World Vision—should also be engaged to ensure proper planning, implementation, and monitoring of community engagement initiatives. While partnerships between organizations within the education sector are highly recommended, cross-sectorial partnerships will also strengthen any nationwide rollout. At this time, opportunities for powerful collaboration exist between Haitian education organizations and Haitian organizations active in the health, protection, and livelihoods sectors. For example, during Project ToTAL, RTI established a partnership with Lion’s Club International Haiti for school-based vision screening to address the issue of vision problems as a barrier to education. Haitian and international organizations in the health sector—e.g., those involved with activities such as school-based health screenings, vitamins, deworming, vaccination, health interventions, food security, and particularly school meal programs, water, and sanitation—could play a key role in a national rollout. PIH/ZL is a prominent example of a health organization that could be a highly value added partner in school-based health initiatives. Organizations involved in gender, human rights, child protection, and livelihoods should also be integrated into a national rollout to address barriers to education in these essential areas. It is important to have diversity in the consortium of implementing partners. Having international and local implementing partners responsible for the program in different geographical areas may help to foster a sense of innovation while also ensuring accountability. Comparisons of successes and challenges between partners can help the MENFP distinguish between the idiosyncratic challenges faced by a particular management team and the opportunities and challenges that are less avoidable and more endemic to implementation in the Haitian context. RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED 6 Finally, powerful opportunities exist to engage the emerging Haitian diaspora organizations. The Florida-based Educa Vision Inc., for example, produces high-quality children’s books in Haitian Creole; Educa Vision supplied books for the ToTAL portable school libraries. Educa Vision could be encouraged to distribute its books using Cloud technology or printing in Haiti. More broadly, considerable opportunities exist in engaging US, Canadian, or French organizations that currently provide educational materials or services to the Haitian diaspora, encouraging them to participate in large-scale education projects in Haiti. Further Materials Development With ToTAL Haitian Creole and French curriculum materials for Grades 1 and 2 now in schools and Grade 3 materials in development, the MENFP should turn its attention to developing materials for Grades 4, 5, and 6. Access to high-quality curricular materials for higher grades is not only important to students who will grow into these materials as they advance in grade level, but also for teachers who are becoming increasingly facile in the application of the ToTAL approach. There are currently very few curriculum developers in Haiti, and the school materials industry is very small. However, it is important that the MENFP adopt the threefold goal of (1) making quality curriculum materials available to students and teachers, (2) building local capacity in curriculum development (i.e., a supply-side intervention), and (3) sparking long-term demand for quality curriculum materials by raising awareness of their importance (i.e., a demand-side intervention). The MENFP should also implement annual assessment of literacy skills to inform both revisions to current materials as well as future curriculum development in higher grades. Bilingual Method and Approach—Prioritize Haitian Creole while Ensuring Competency in French Another significant element of the Haitian education context is that Haitian Creole and French have very different social functions and levels of usage. The Haitian national education policy wisely requires that students begin reading instruction in Creole. However, because Haitian Creole is only spoken in Haiti and has only become officially recognized as a suitable language of instruction in the past decades, there remains a dearth of high-quality instructional and enrichment materials in Creole. The MENFP can and should partner with local and international organizations as needed to ensure that curricular materials that build literacy in Creole while fostering the transfer of early literacy skills to French are available to all students. Continue use of EGRA and SSME The EGRA is a powerful and cost-effective assessment that is well established in Haiti and benefits from significant support and buy-in from the MENFP. During a 2019-2010 EGRA implementation, the World Bank supported the MENFP to adapt and pilot the assessment instruments, and the MENFP took the lead in implementing the nation’s first large-scale EGRA in public and private schools in the Nippes and Artibonite departments. RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED 7 Building upon these early experiences and the success of the EGRA implementations conducted during the ToTAL project, it is important that the MENFP continue to measure student progress and compare improvement across different geographic areas of intervention, different types of schools, and, in time, between diverse implementing partners. The MENFP should also use student learning data to inform and improve teacher training and coaching. Continued implementation and analysis is necessary to more fully understand the importance of community mobilization and its cost-effectiveness in contributing to improved reading outcomes. The MENFP should also continue to use an SSME-like instrument to identify and prioritize school improvement initiatives. It is clear that the Haitian school system faces many fundamental barriers to education, including too few school days during the school year in most schools, inconsistent enrollment, poor attendance, and very low levels of education among currently active teachers and directors. The average number of class days per year Haitian students spend in school is among the lowest worldwide. Corporal punishment is widespread and contributes to a climate of fear as opposed to joyful learning. Insufficient sanitation facilities contribute to an unwelcoming and unhealthy school environment, while posing additional barriers to education for older girls. Continued use of the SSME can help the MENFP monitor and, remediate these serious but preventable barriers. Once gathered, SSME-type results should be presented along with the EGRA findings in workshops and other appropriate fora to promote a greater understanding of current challenges and to organize support to address them. The partners in the national rollout must share their results with school communities and key education stakeholders and compile data on selected actions taken by schools and educational officials to improve management effectiveness. The MENFP must also reach out to partners capable of making infrastructure improvements and building school-based water and sanitation facilities in response to SSME findings and other observations about school conditions. To support these data-driven initiatives, the MENFP must continue to build local capacity by training new evaluator teams to conduct EGRA and SSME at the beginning and end of school years. During the ToTAL EGRA trainings, enumerators’ skills increased, and these individuals remain as a valuable resource for subsequent testing cycles. It will also be critical for the MENFP to work with implementing partners to strengthen existing data collection, analysis, management, and use systems. The USAID-funded Konesans e Konpetans Teknik (KONEKTE), for example, could help attract staff with the advanced professional and educational background required to help the MENFP embrace the EGRA and become a data-driven organization. Although this rollout plan focuses on early grade reading, it is important to consider implementing EGMA in addition to the EGRA to gather data on numeracy as well as literacy to inform future programmatic and policy decisions. RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED 8 Tangerine-Based Data Gathering for M&E and Project Management An important contribution of the ToTAL project was the exploration and development of electronic data collection applications and systems (including both tablet devices enabled with the Tangerine technology and smart phones enabled with Pomegranate) to most cost-effectively gather information during the repeated assessments and routine monitoring and coaching of teachers. Use of such tools allowed management to track program results in real time. The MENFP has the capacity to begin making widespread use of the Tangerine system for sharing information between individuals at the school level, MENFP staff, and partners at district and national levels. The web-based forms that were used in ToTAL can be made available to the MENFP for follow-on activities. A nationwide rollout should expand the use of tablets at the school level and web-based data aggregation technology to track both implementation and progress against indicators. It is very important that community mobilizers and MENFP inspectors, in addition to coaches, have access to electronic tablets (e.g., Amazon Fire). Quality data-gathering instruments for the tablets and report formats for the aggregate data should be prepared in advance and adjusted over time to allow quality program management and accurate reporting on indicators. Program data should also be compiled into reports that can be shared with various stakeholders. Throughout this process, it is important that the MENFP assess program data gathered by partners as well as independently gather and analyze program data. Partners with high capacity in information management must lead the capacity development and training efforts for both other partners and the MENFP. Teacher Quality: Connect, Support, and Train Current Teachers while Attracting Qualified Professionals to Teaching During the implementation of Project ToTAL, project staff often faced challenges changing the pedagogical approach of teachers who had only a very basic level of education and no formal pre-service professional training. The 2003 school census reported that the highest level of education for more than 70% of teachers is secondary school and that the average primary school teacher has completed only one year of secondary education. Sector-wide, less than 22% of all primary school teachers are credentialed. Even in the public schools, only 48% of teachers are credentialed, compared to 18% of non-public school teachers. Outdated teaching practices are common. Many teachers have not mastered the competencies they are expected to teach, including reading and writing in Haitian Creole and reading, writing, and speaking in French. In short, the Haitian teaching force is, to a significant degree, inadequately prepared, and this lack of teacher capacity is one cause of poor-quality instruction and poor student outcomes. RTI’s experience—both Haiti and elsewhere—is that quality coaching combined with carefully scripted lessons can improve the ability of even struggling teachers to teach effectively. RTI, RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED 9 therefore, suggests that a strong support network of coaches and supervisors will be crucial to effectively implementing a nationwide rollout of an early grade reading program. It will be the responsibility of the MENFP to build capacity within government school inspectors so that they can take a greater role, and ultimately assume direct responsibility for, carrying out this crucial function. It will also be very important for the MENFP to develop policies that attract people with higher levels of education to teaching as well as to train and support the underqualified teachers that are currently in many schools. Further, it is essential that these teachers receive access to credentialing. The in-service trainings that are part of the national rollout could, for example, be adapted, reinforced, and integrated into a national teacher credentialing program. The project could use its implementation infrastructure to make available important professional education materials for teachers, in both electronic and hard copy. Coaches and supervisors could work with teachers, through the Réunions de Grappe and other fora, to help them through a credentialing program. Conclusion A national rollout of a quality early grade reading program is an essential step for addressing the alarmingly, and unacceptably, high rates of illiteracy (53% in recent estimates) that undermine Haiti’s social, political, and economic development. It will also provide a rare opportunity to improve Haitian institutions, policies, and systems so that Haiti can more effectively and sustainably educate its children.1 Of primary importance is that the MENFP—either directly or in concert with implementing partners—develop the systems and capabilities required to independently administer the program. It will also be essential to expand gradually, and into areas where the program has a high likelihood of success. Although cooperation and sharing between consortium partners must be encouraged, there must also be carefully delineated roles, clearly defined role boundaries, and a strong sense of accountability that is measured by adherence to work plans and ongoing M&E. Local organizations are essential to implementation, but they must be engaged based on a realistic assessment of their capabilities. Specifically, politically powerful organizations with weak implementing capacity cannot be engaged for a greater share of work than they can implement or given management responsibilities that they cannot handle. Instead, the subcontracting process must begin with capacity assessments so that capacity-building efforts can meet organizations where they are and then build from there. Instead of contracting local partners for the life of the project, contracts should be renewable and adjustable based on performance. Strengthening the branches within MENFP and its local partners is crucial. It will be important to remember that the most important organizations involved in any project are found at the school level. As a result, it is crucial to ensure that, as part of the national implementation, the MENFP 1 Library of Congress – Federal Research Division. Country Profile: Haiti, May 2006. RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED 10 and its international and national partners work with school management and school boards to set up reading structures in each area, with the help of local school inspectors. Curriculum materials development must continue in order to give children access to high-quality materials as they advance into higher grades. Haitian Creole must be given full respect and priority. The ToTAL program has helped to affirm the importance of Creole as the language of initial reading instruction, and a nationwide rollout must continue this emphasis on learning to read in the mother tongue. However, there is still much progress to make in ensuring that Haitian students in the early grades acquire the foundational French skills needed to have access to further education in French. Continued effort is required to ensure that the Creole-speaking population learns to read French in the early grades to allow for a lifetime of participation in the educational, political, and economic opportunities that often in contemporary Haiti require French literacy and strong oral French language skills. Continued use of EGRA—or another early grade reading assessment—is essential to measuring the impact of the program and informing revisions to curriculum materials and adjustments to training, coaching, and pedagogical practices. Likewise, an SSME-like tool will help to set school improvement priorities. Further, the Tangerine technology is not only useful for EGRA but also can be a very useful tool for aggregating ongoing M&E information in real time, allowing for prompt response from program management to developments at the school level. Finally, the nationwide rollout of ToTAL, like any other large-scale education project, will succeed or fail one classroom and one teacher at a time. Supporting the current corps of teachers to help them to change long-held habits and improve their pedagogy is crucial to the success of the program and to increasing levels of literacy. A multifaceted, integrated program of in-service teacher training and coaching support, provision of quality instructional materials, and strengthening of the links between teachers at different schools will be fundamental to achieving the strong student outcomes. With time, this support provided to teachers will help attract better educated and more highly qualified professionals to the teaching profession. Through following these recommendations, the national rollout will have the best possible chance of succeeding in its goal of vastly increasing the numbers of Haitian children who learn to read in the early grades, while also serving as a catalyst for lasting institutional improvement in Haiti’s education sector. RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED 11 Annex I: Descriptions of Potential Partners Descriptions of leading Haitian educational organizations that are well positioned to contribute to a large scale early grade reading project. Contact information for these organizations can be found in the database that accompanies the Project ToTAL capacity mapping report. Institut de Formation du Sud (IFOS) IFOS has served as an essential local partner for Project ToTAL in the implementation of the project’s four EGRA and two SSME administrations, providing value-added assistance with planning the assessments, training enumerators, managing the survey process, and finally organizing and moderating conferences to disseminate findings to stakeholders at the local and national level. The Project ToTAL team witnessed first-hard that IFOS core strengths are training, capacity building, and management of assessments. RTI has worked closely with the senior management of IFOS and finds them to be highly effective at project management, technologically savvy, and capable of ensuring high survey quality under difficult conditions in rural and urban Haiti. In addition to its core team, IFOS has an impressive roster of consultants who demonstrated that they can provide invaluable support to early grade reading programs, including a former Minister of Education who participated in the Project ToTAL Grade 2 Pilot Support Team. In addition to its extensive training, assessment, evaluation, and capacity building strengths, IFOS has expertise in local governance and micro finance. IFOS’s most pressing current challenge appears to be managing growth effectively, because its success in managing assessments has led to many new projects. If IFOS is able to accommodate this new growth by expanding its staffing and adapting management systems, then it will surely be an important part of the education sectors for years to come. IFOS was legally constituted from 2004 and is recognized by the Ministry of Trade and Industry and registered in the General Direction of Taxes. IFOS’s main office is in Port-au-Prince and it maintains two regional representational offices: one in Jean Rabel in the Northwest and the other in Les Cayes, in the South. IFOS is well positioned to help address the fact that accurate, updated information about school management and student performance has long been elusive in Haiti. Through its expertise in planning, preparing for, and carrying out EGRA assessments, IFOS is uniquely well positioned to gather data while putting in place and strengthening data gathering systems to address this problem on an ongoing basis. Access to technology from the Haitian private sector, such as tablets from Surtab, could certainly serve to enhance IFOS platform. Due to the potential for synergy between IFOS and Surtab, a partnership between the two organizations should be explored, as IFOS could help to field test Surtab prototypes while benefiting from lower cost access to materials. As an example of skills sharing partnerships within the education sector, IFOS could also consider consulting to or partnering with FONHEP to improve and update the administrative and information management systems of FONHEP. However, this partnership would only be mutually worthwhile if FONHEP is willing to make real change to its monitoring and evaluation as well as management systems. Finally, because of its assessment and data RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED 12 management experience, IFOS should participate on any larger scale initiatives to improve education information management in Haiti such as the development of a national EMIS. Further, because IFOS has not only educational expertise but also expertise in micro credit and governance, it is well positioned to help establish, as well as to strengthen and support, cross sector partnerships. This report also recommends that future programs continue to strengthen the links among Haitian organizations in sectors with strong potential synergies to education. These efforts should prioritize partnerships with the health sector facilitating, for example, school based health screenings, health interventions, vitamins, deworming, and vaccination, as well as particularly school feedings and water and sanitation. Partnerships between education and other sectors including human rights, protection, livelihoods, and civil society, with gender as a cross- cutting theme, could greatly enhance upcoming early grade reading initiatives. IFOS is well positioned to contribute to the establishment and growth of these partnerships through its multi- sector expertise and strength in training, assessments, data management, and evaluations. Fondation Haïtienne de l'Enseignement Privé (FONHEP) FONHEP served as lead implementing partner for Project ToTAL’s school-based coaching and support to teachers, as well as for community mobilization. While the coaches and community mobilizers were the staff of FONHEP’s partner organization CEEC, FONHEP senior staff contributed to curriculum development during the project. Long established and viewed as a prominent education institution in Haiti, FONHEP works through its own staff who have expertise in training and curriculum development as well as the three organizations in its network CEEC, Fédération des Ecoles Protestantes d’Haïti (FEPH), and Confédération des Ecoles Privées Indépendantes d’Haïti (CONFEPIH). Due to the highly privatized nature of the Haitian school system, an umbrella organization for private schools such as FONHEP occupies an important place in the education system and benefits from considerable partnership opportunities as a result. While FONHEP has been viewed for decades as a leader in the education sector in Haiti with access to a wide network of schools through its partner CEEC, RTI found that FONHEP struggled to turn these advantages into program results due to its very limited capacity in project management, program administration, M&E, information technology, and reporting. FONHEP partner CEEC provided access to dedicated coaches and community mobilizers who implemented Project ToTAL on a daily basis in treatment schools. However, FONHEP and CEEC struggled to process coaching information. In December 2013, FONHEP and CEEC agreed to use Tablet-based coaching forms empowered by Tangerine electronic data capture technology, which allowed for real-time access to coaching information while providing an important capacity building opportunity for CEEC organizations. As a result of this experience, RTI would recommend that any implementing partner plan to devote time and resources to managerial and administrative capacity building, such as through establishing an in-house capacity building unit to support FONHEP. FONHEP has begun to take steps towards addressing its management issues including hiring a leadership and management expert to help to improve management processes and partner relations. Further work is required RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED 13 to help FONHEP to improve its program and operations management capacities, adopt standard information technology, and strengthen administrative systems to better leverage its reputation and to allow it to better fulfill its organization objectives of improving access, quality, and equity in primary education and promoting institutional development in the private education in Haiti. Commission Épiscopale d'Éducation Catholique (CEEC)2 Commission Épiscopale d'Éducation Catholique (CEEC) is a structure created by the Catholic Church and is part of FONHEP. There are 2,301 Catholic schools in Haiti, a large majority (60%) of which are in rural areas, and due to its vast network of schools, CEEC is an important participant in any education initiative. According to the CEEC’s July 2012 review report, there were three main categories of Catholic schools in Haiti: presbyteral schools, parochial schools, and non-denominational schools. As described by the Diocesan Offices of Education and confirmed by the data, the majority of Haitian Catholic schools were presbyteral. The Haitian Catholic education authorities considered presbyteral schools (i.e. State-funded parish schools) to be the poorest in terms of resources and quality.3 Through its access to Catholic schools and its hardworking coaches, CEEC brings valuable resources to any large-scale early grade reading program. The CEEC has already managed a large number of projects and has its own print shop. However, CEEC could better mobilize and leverage its network of schools with an updated approach to data collection and data management. During Project ToTAL, CEEC coaches, supervisors and community mobilizers helped to implement the teacher support and community mobilization activities. CEEC’s coaches are highly dedicated and hard working. CEEC supervisors tend to be seasoned professionals who have extensive experience in the education sector and are well respected by teachers, school leadership, and the local MENFP representatives. CEEC coaches and supervisors are very familiar with the Project ToTAL methodology, participated in all Project ToTAL teacher trainings for the two school years of project, and received targeted coach’s trainings. Further, Project ToTAL staff worked with FONHEP staff to train the CEEC Community Mobilizers for planned school-based activities as well as for the MENFP Summer Reading Championship. During the second year of implementation, RTI helped CEEC to switch from paper based classroom observation questionnaires for its coaches to tablet-based, Tangerine-enabled coaching questionnaires. The CEEC staff proved to be much more effective at conducting the school based coaching visits than implementing the community mobilization activities, although it is unclear if this was due to challenges at the CEEC or FONHEP level. Future partners of CEEC should look for further opportunities to help CEEC use technologies like tablets and internet-based systems like Tangerine as well as to strengthen management systems to help CEEC to better leverage its very extensive network of schools and of relationships. 2 Taken from the latest CEEC review (2012). 3 The grants awarded by the government to schools in Haiti take a variety of forms, including the payment of teacher salaries and direct, headcount-proportional grants to schools, such as the Education for All (EFA) program. The survey did not ask the respondents to specify the type of any grants received by the school. RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED 14 Maison Henri Deschamps Founded in 1898, the Maison Henri Deschamps, the longstanding leader in book publishing in Haiti, was an important source of children’s books for the school libraries that Project ToTAL provided to treatment schools. Maison Henri Deschamps is a leading printer of textbooks and children’s books. It enjoys a great deal of prestige and name recognition in Haiti due to its book publishing, as well as its retail stores that sell books, stationery, and computer software in Port- au-Prince. However, the Maison Henri Deschamps also has a wealth of child-friendly educational content that could be shared with future partners if intellectual property concerns are addressed. Deschamps also benefits from an extensive nationwide network of distributors nationwide, which could be helpful to the distribution of instructional and leisure reading materials as part of an early grade reading program. Deschamps has been a leading member of the RETEL e-learning network since June 2011. The purpose of the RETEL network is to develop digital educational content for Haiti and make it available online, while also making computers and tablets available to schools for purchase. Deschamps has developed instructional materials on tablets as part of its efforts in support of RETEL and has signed an agreement with MENFP to pilot these instructional tools. YMCA d’Haiti YMCA d' Haiti has an extensive network of motivated, trained youth volunteers who helped Project ToTAL to conduct the MENFP’s Summer Reading Championship in schools and could add considerable value to other community mobilization activities. The YMCA d’Haiti’s robust support to the MENFP’s summer program demonstrates the potential of voluntary civic organizations to partner with and support the public sector. YMCA d' Haiti is part of a worldwide community service organization whose mission is to “to build spirit, mind and body.” Its management team, led by Secretary General Gwénaël Apollon is competent and energetic. YMCA d'Haiti develops children, youth, and adults through education and “character building” programs so they can become leaders to strengthen families and communities. YMCA d' Haiti serve youth and adults in Port au Prince, Laboule, Kenscoff, Camp Perrin, Mersan and Croix des Bouquets ( opened in January 2013), offering programs to 1,000 Youth Members and 5,000 Total Youth and Adult Participants. In 2008, the YMCA d'Haiti served 1,500 youth and adults in three locations. During the spring of 2014, YMCA Haiti implemented a reading program in all its centers in cooperation with Partners of the Americas. YMCA d’Haiti hosts an after school program that could complement formal education support programs like Project ToTAL. As a result of these impressive strengths, YMCA d’Haiti is well positioned to play a lead role in the community mobilization initiatives of an early grade reading project. Educa Vision Inc. Educa Vision Inc. designs, develops, publishes, and distributes a broad range of multicultural and multilingual educational materials. The materials are available in several media including books, charts, computer programs, DVD, Inter-active lessons and assessment pieces delivered on the web, and on CD Rom. Educa Vision Inc. reports that it currently has more than 1,000 titles available. While its core capacities are language arts, science, social sciences and mathematics, it produces a wide range of public health education materials on topics ranging from, nutrition, RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED 15 STD prevention, high blood pressure, and diabetes. The company was founded in 1991 by Féquière Vilsaint while he was a researcher at the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology department of the University of South Florida. In 1994, Mr. Vilsaint, the founder, began working full time to build Educa Vision Inc. The company now has a core team that is supplemented by external professionals who consult to provide subject matter expertise. Project ToTAL benefited a great deal from the high-quality, age-appropriate, child friendly Creole children’s books produced by the Florida-based Educa Vision Inc. that were included in the school libraries distributed to all treatment schools. Educa Vision’s contributions to Project ToTAL represent an example of the emerging possibilities of partnering with Haitian diaspora organizations to provide a wider range of educational products and services for Haitian school children. As with Deschamps, Educavision has developed instructional materials on tablets for the RETEL initiative and has signed an agreement with MENFP to pilot these instructional tools. CreoleTrans The Miami-based CreoleTrans is another example of a Haitian diaspora organization that can serve as a value-added partner of future early grade reading projects. During Project ToTAL, CreoleTrans provided high quality translation of project materials into Creole. While Project ToTAL also used the services of local translators, CreoleTrans provided an important source of translating services during the project. CreoleTrans has been officially registered in the State of Florida since 1998 and has been operating since 1999. In addition to Creole, CreoleTrans provides translation and interpretation in French, Spanish, and Portuguese. CreoleTrans’ clients are publishing agencies, nonprofits, hospitals, government agencies, newspapers, and universities including Houghton Mifflin, the Early Childhood Initiative Foundation, the Children’s Trust, the North Broward Hospital District, the Federal Detention Center, the Miami Herald, and the University of Miami. J/P Haitian Relief Organization J/P Haitian Relief Organization (J/P HRO), an international organization with strong ties to the Delmas 32 neighborhood, served as a value added partner in extending the ToTAL program into 20 additional schools in urban Delmas. J/P HRO’s educational programs are implemented as part of its model of community development that includes integrated, holistic support in the education, community-building, and livelihoods sectors. This community based model is implemented in partnership with local residents, community leaders, and local institutions. J/P HRO’s education program began in the early days of the earthquake emergency response when J/P HRO established Ecole de l’Espoir, a primary school providing quality education for children of displaced families in a camp setting. The school is in its fourth academic year, has 213 students, and has transitioned from a displaced persons camp into the local neighborhood. The J/P HRO Education Program continues to successfully maintain and manage the school, including 17 teachers, two principals and two assistant principals and 12 classes of students. As displaced families relocate to permanent homes, the J/P HRO’s education program has shifted its focus to supporting existing neighborhood schools. The primary goal of the J/P HRO Education Program is to support the successful implementation of the MENFP’s national school curriculum, while creating a model micro school district. This project, known as the Delmas 32 RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED 16 Education Revitalization Initiative, is positively impacting 6,000 students currently going to school in the community. With the aim to innovate in the classroom and improve academic outcomes, the Delmas 32 Education Revitalization Initiative provides curriculum development support to teachers, enabling them to adopt forward-looking practices that encourage critical thinking among their students. For school administrators, this program provides organizational development support to optimize management of their respective institutions and bridge existing gaps between needs and currently available resources. At its core, the Delmas 32 Education Revitalization Initiative serves as a professional support network for all educational professionals in the community. With partners AMURT (Ananda Marga Universal Relief Team) and LOCAL- Haiti (Local Capacity Alliance), J/P HRO has coupled the initiative with an intensive, innovative, multi-year teacher training program that includes 125 instructors in 22 schools, reaching more than 3,000 students. J/P HRO takes a multi sectoral approach to educational programming and draws from all its program departments to ensure that students in the community have access to a safe and secure classroom that is also conducive to learning. J/P HRO’s Engineering and Construction Program has rehabilitated the physical infrastructure of earthquake-damaged schools. The Protection and Communications team has provided psychosocial support and training to help students and teachers create a positive learning environment. The Medical team is also partnering with the team on WASH programs for students to practice good hygiene and providing free school health consultations and eye exams to all students and faculty. Due to its extensive relationships with and strong reputation in the community in Delmas 32, J/P HRO is should continue to serve as an important partner on any future early grade reading projects. Lions Club International Haiti Project ToTAL had the privilege to partner with Lions Club International Haiti during the 2013- 2014 school year to provide sensitization and wall charts for teachers to conduct school based vision screening. Lions Club International also organized volunteer doctors to provide vision screening for teachers at teacher trainings and ad hoc school based vision screening for students, teachers, and school directors. Lions Club International Haiti is a longstanding, well respected organization in Haiti whose membership includes leading members of the Haitian business community, civil society, and the Haitian medical establishment. Lions Club International Haiti’s membership has close ties to other civic organizations, as well as the Haitian government. Lions Club International Haiti’s membership also travel abroad to work with and learn from Lions Club International Chapters in the United States and elsewhere. Because vision is fundamental to reading, Lions Club International Haiti is a natural partner for any future early grade reading project. Because of its tremendous potential, future projects should consider a targeted capacity building plan for Lions Club International Haiti that would transform its current capacity to conduct ad hoc school-based vision screening into a more systematic and scalable approach to vision screening. As a voluntary organization, Lions Club International Haiti depends on the benevolence of its unpaid membership and officers to implement programming. A potential organizational development goal for Lions Club International Haiti could be to work with the RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED 17 lead partner of an early grade reading project to build its internal systems and capacity to the point that it would be ready to receive independent donor funding to support full-time staff that could plan and coordinate more wide-spread, school-based vision sensitization and screening activities. This report recommends that future programs continue to strengthen the links among Haitian organizations in sectors with strong potential synergies to education, including organizations in the health sector—for example, those involved with activities such as school- based health screenings, vitamins, deworming, vaccination, access for disabled children, food security, and particularly school feedings, water, and sanitation—to ensure a hygienic school environment and to address barriers to education for girls, gender, human rights, protection, and livelihoods. Surtab Project ToTAL also recommends that future partners use tablet-based systems, such as Tangerine, to streamline the school-based data gathering. Tablet technologies have tremendous potential to solve the long-standing challenge of accessing reliable school-level data by strengthening the links between schools, first-line implementing staff, and project management. In a very exciting development, tablet computers are now being produced in Haiti by Surtab. Founded in Haiti in 2013, Surtab’s factory in Port-au-Prince manufactures affordable and durable tablet PCs. Since completing registration in June 2013, the company has expanded from 4 ambitious entrepreneurs to more than 50 Haitian employees. Surtab began mass production of tablets in December 2013 and has a production capacity of over 7,000 tablets per month. Surtab tablets are currently available in Digicel shops in Haiti and are sold wholesale in Haiti, the Caribbean and Africa. The company plans to begin online sales to North America and Europe during the summer of 2014. Surtab’s mission is to create much needed, well paid jobs and increasing overall prosperity in low-income areas of the world by bridging the existing digital gap. In keeping with its mission, 90% of Surtab’s staff are female. Current Surtab tablets have 2G and 3G connectivity and can be used worldwide. Future partners of USAID involved in early grade reading, and particularly in EGRA assessments should consider using Surtab tablets. Bureau des Eglises Méthodistes d’Haïti pour l’Education Générale (BEMHEG) The Methodist Church of Haiti set up a school system that offers instruction to thousands of children around the country (in the eight departments where the mission is present). The Methodist education system is designed to be an instrument of the Church, in the service of education. At the time of the survey, the mission had 100 schools, some of which were supported but not recognized by the BEMHEG due to their very poor academic results. It is important that any reading program work effectively with the extensive networks of Protestant and Catholic faith-based schools in Haiti that have flourished in the highly privatized education sector. BEMHEG works closely with the US-based Methodist international NGO United Methodist Committee on Relief (“UMCOR”), which adds to its capacity, resources, and potential for impact. RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED 18 Plan Haïti Plan Haïti is an international organization that has been active in Haiti for more than 35 years. Its actions were concentrated in Sud-Est, Nord-Est, and Ouest. Through a child mentoring program, Plan Haïti enabled thousands of children to attend school by giving parents financial support and guidance for setting up income-generating activities. Plan Haïti also supported school development, particularly school infrastructure and teacher training. Plan Haïti reported placing a priority on lobbying and economic development, alongside its health and sanitation actions. As a result, Plan Haïti has the potential to contribute to the government relations, policy dialogue, and national advocacy component of any early grade reading program. Artibonite Public University of Gonaïves (UPAG) Artibonite Public University of Gonaïves (UPAG) is one of the regional universities. Its faculty of education ran a FIA program on behalf of EFA. In recent years, the faculty participated in the supervision of schools subsidized by the Universal, Free, and Mandatory Schooling Program. At the time of the survey, the university had approximately 100 students finalizing their dissertations for their bachelor’s degrees in education. UPAG reported having a digital room and a computer lab to help to train school teachers. This lab could be used to train teachers, coaches, community mobilizers, and MENFP staff in the use of tablets as well as in online lifelong learning and professional development applications. La Fédération des Écoles Protestantes d’Haïti (FEPH) La Fédération des Écoles Protestantes d’Haïti (FEPH) is a network of some 3,000 schools. It is also a member of FONHEP and CLIO and has a national structure that is easy to mobilize, thanks to its centralized coordination. The FEPH was founded in May 1986 and reported a network of more than 300 churches and protestant organizations. The network’s stated objective is to promote quality education at the university level. It was active in Ouest, Sud-Est, Artibonite, Grand’Anse, Nord-Ouest, Nippes, Sud, and Nord. Its activities involve developing lesson plans for teachers, raising parents’ awareness, training teachers, planning extracurricular activities, and producing academic materials for the network. With so many children and parents relying on this faith based network, it is important that it be included in any early grade reading program. Further, it can be used to channel the often ad hoc and uncoordinated support to education in Haiti from American Protestant churches and charitable organizations. Confédération des Écoles Privées Indépendantes d’Haïti (CONFEPIH) The goal of Confédération des Écoles Privées Indépendantes d’Haïti (CONFEPIH) is to unite independent private schools in working to improve the quality of teaching in Haiti. CONFEPIH was founded in 1993 to establish cohesion among independent private schools in Haiti. It provides support to 12 regional associations and hundreds of local ones. As reported, the CONFEPIH network includes 800 schools plus 1,142 affiliates, and its most recent educational project was a training program for teachers at 100 schools, with 800 professors and principals as RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED 19 its beneficiaries. In addition to educational support, it has also provided academic materials to schools. CONFEPIH works in partnership with the FONHEP and MENFP. Future projects could work to help CONFEPIH to better leverage its network to provide teacher training and curriculum improvement. Le Fonds de Parrainage National (FPN) As part of the national effort for universal education, Le Fonds de Parrainage National (FPN) endeavors to offer quality education to the country’s poorest children. FPN is a private, non-profit, apolitical, duly registered organization. Since its creation in 1992 through a private-sector initiative, FPN has been working to help the country’s most underprivileged children to attend school. FPN brings together multiple organizations representing four of the main sectors of Haitian society: NGOs involved in education, the business world, churches, and the Haitian State. To better cover the entire territory, FPN is run in a decentralized manner. Sponsored children are placed in schools selected by FPN—on the basis of certain eligibility criteria established by the institution’s specialists—to ensure the program’s success. FPN is well suited to work with an organization like UNICEF or Save to receive capacity building in the protection issues related to working with extremely vulnerable children while giving these same children an irreplaceable chance of a future through access to quality early grade education. Le Centre d’Apprentissage et de Formation pour la Transformation (CAFT) According to the directory of organizations,4 Le Centre d’Apprentissage et de Formation pour la Transformation’s (CAFT) goal is to support the Haitian population, particularly the poor, in facing urgent education and environmental challenges and, in that way, to help with the development of the vast and unique potential of that segment of the population. Registered with the Ministry of Social Affairs since 1999 and accredited by the Haitian Ministry of Education, CAFT is firmly established and widely recognized in Haiti for the effectiveness of its transformational education programs. Thanks to a mutual learning progress, and in collaboration with government and nongovernmental agencies, CAFT develops and manages innovative, transformational training programs for trained and informal trainers, trained and informal members, and institution members, with the goal of promoting a positive attitude and behavioral changes through the development of individual and collective capacities. For four years, CAFT managed a training program on quality education for Plan International, from which 60 schools for the poor, 400 principals and trainers, 2,000 parents, and 13,000 trainees have benefited. CAFT subsequently expanded its activities, which helped more than 30 other schools and more than 20 groups of adolescents in five new municipalities in Sud-Est and Nord-Ouest, by establishing partnerships with local community institutions and by launching a youth leadership program for teachers and young activity organizers. From its headquarters in 4 AIR 2010, directory of civil society organizations working in the field of education, PHARE Project. RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED 20 Port-au-Prince (Pétionville), CAFT has organized training sessions in every department in the country. During Project ToTAL, a senior member of CAFT participated in the Pilot Support Team for the Grade 2 curriculum materials, providing valuable commentary and guidance to the ToTAL curriculum team and helping to improve the quality of the curriculum materials. During the Pilot Support Team process, in which leaders in Haitian education advised on the development of Grade 2 curriculum materials for Project ToTAL, it became clear that CAFT has expertise in curriculum development and is respected by other local organizations as well as by members of the MENFP. CAFT should certainly be consulted, and potentially brought into partnership, on further curriculum development projects. Ecole Normale de Vaudreuil Ecole Normale de Vaudreuil is run by sisters and has a tremendous training capacity, including a computer lab. It trains students to teach the first two cycles of primary school. Some inspectors at the Nord DDE lend their services to the primary teacher training school. This school could be used as a training venue and forum for dialogue, as part of a large-scale reading project. SOS Children’s Village Nord and Ouest SOS Children’s Village is a non-profit organization that provides guidance for children in need. It conducts actions in Ouest, particularly in and around Santo, and in Nord, at Beaubin. SOS is currently in the process of extending its interventions into Sud. SOS gets its funding from international organizations. It has large premises and a well-organized structure. It will be able to work with the project to implement a reading program in the SOS schools. The organization’s premises could be used to perform reading mobilization activities and as a training center. Bureau Anglican de l’Éducation en Haïti (BAEH) The goals of the Bureau Anglican de l’Éducation en Haïti (BAEH) are to (i) work to eradicate poverty by increasing education-related services; (ii) fight injustice and contribute to the advent of a more peaceful, equitable world, through prioritizing education, as well as youth training; (iii) promote education for all by making quality education more accessible; and (iv) work in partnership with all organizations, regardless of their beliefs and political affiliations, to make the freedom offered by knowledge prevail and to raise funds to support schools in the Episcopalian network. In 2005, the Episcopal Church of Haiti established the Anglican Bureau of Education to supervise all of the educational activities organized and funded by the Church, throughout the country. The BAEH currently has some 60 schools nationwide. It is a member of Consortium des Organisations du Secteur Privé de l’Éducation (COSPE) and CLIO. The BAEH has already managed substantial funds, particularly relating to the Canadian Cooperation’s local funds. While Haiti is a majority Catholic country, the Episcopal Church is well established, well respected, and benefits from philanthropic ties to the Episcopal community in the United States. Future education projects should seek to engage and leverage this important network of schools. RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED 21 Bibliothèque Sans Frontières Founded in in 2007, Bibliothèque Sans Frontières is a French NGO that provides books and promotes reading to encourage social and cultural development. Bibliothèque Sans Frontières has been active in Haiti since 2009 making books available in Port-au-Prince as well as in regional cities. Initiatives in Haiti include Bibliotaptaps that serve an estimated 15,000 people per month in Port-au-Prince as well as implementation of the “One Book Per Child” initiative in partnership with UNESCO. Anseye Pou Ayiti Anseye Pou Ayiti (APA) is an exciting new organization that has great promise to engage with a national rollout program for both direct implementation in supported schools as well as possible training and technical support to the teacher quality initiatives of the program. With connections to the Teach For All initiative, APA is currently in the process of negotiating a formal partnership with Teach For All. Led by a Haitian graduate of Yale and Harvard, APA seeks to reimagine the role of high-quality teachers for the ultimate benefit of all children. APA plans to launch with its inaugural cohort of 30 selected teachers during summer 2015. APA seeks to recruit top university graduates into the teaching profession, joined by existing teachers seeking a formal training opportunity. APA will provide ongoing, data-driven training and coaching throughout the school year informed by student outcomes. APA has a five year goal of improving student outcomes so 100% of APA students pursue secondary education. Recruitment criteria for teachers is based on APA’s vision for excellent teaching, content expertise, and leadership potential. Candidates will include top university graduates, existing teachers, and professionals, including those who have experienced the inequity APA works to address. Pre- service training is required for all selected APA teachers, as well as ongoing workshops and coaching. The content and approach of APA training will focus on transformational instruction, leadership, social change, and community empowerment, tailored to the Haitian context. Informed by the Teach for America model, APA will ensure teachers are placed in existing rural primary schools where they will have maximum impact—raising education outcomes and altering the life trajectory of their students. APA teacher are not hired to replace school staff, but rather to fill open positions and, in doing so, to increase existing schools’ capacity. Partners in Health / Zanmi Lasante Partners in Health, the highly respected health NGO, and its longstanding Haitian affiliate Zanmi Lasante (PIH/ZL) are interested in supporting a small school district of approximately 40 schools in the Central Plateau in support of the communities that receive its health services. This effort is in line with its long-held emphasis on improving socio-economic the situation of the beneficiaries of its health care services. In implementing this program, PIH/ZL will build upon its experience running a school in the Cange health complex during the past decades. RTI Recommendations for Nationwide Rollout, REVISED 22