Nesmy Manigat, the Minister of National Education and several Haitian publishing houses (Henri Deschamps, Pédagogie Nouvelle S.A., Impressions des Antilles, C3 Editions, Kopivit, Editions Lorquet, Université Caraibes) agreed to launch at the beginning of the month December 2023 an initiative aimed at gradually providing public and private schools with libraries in the 10 Departmental Directorates of Education (DDE). An initiative that remains open to other publishing partners.

Manigat informs his interlocutors of the data from the 2022 National Assessment (ENA2022) relating to the low reading ability of students.

During this meeting, all participants highlighted the importance of reading in the successful development of the school careers of children and young people, and in the development of their imagination, their sense of creativity and their reasoning. According to them, the child who reads quality and understands what he reads opens up to others, opens up to the world while participating, without it seeming so at first glance, has his own training.

Each publishing house shared the experience conducted in two or three educational establishments, in Port-au-Prince and in the provinces; experiment which showed how the playful introduction of children, from a very young age, to reading is decisive in their academic performance.

Furthermore, the participants unanimously insisted on the need to make room within the framework of this initiative for preschool instructors, primary and secondary school teachers, given that it is their responsibility, by their profession, to introduce the children reading: passive reading, indicative reading, active reading, exploratory reading, analytical reading, pleasure reading, etc.

To make this initiative viable, its outlines will be clarified shortly, in a partnership protocol between the Ministry and publishing houses.

HL/ HaitiLibre