Tipa Tipa (Step by Step in Creole) - Haiti

Program Image

Program

  • Type of Program: Preschool and primary
  • Age Served: 3 to 12 years
  • Funding Sources: FOKAL (National Foundation) and OSI
  • Presenter: Evelyne Margron (Program Country Director)
  • Address: 7, Av. Des Marguerites
    Canape Vert, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
  • Telephone: (509) 558-9785
  • Fax: (509) 245-0008
  • Email: [email protected]

Program Purpose

To support the state efforts to improve education by developing model quality school programs for children 0 to 12 and their families, and by offering quality modern teacher training as well.

Program Description

Tipa Tipa is a school program for children 0 to 12 and their families. Thus far, it has developed reformed classes for children 3 to 7 years and will start, in July 2001, for children 8 to 12. The progam works with 17 schools deserving disadvantaged populations: one in urban Port-au-Prince (the capital city), one in Dame-Marie (a small country town) and all others in rural areas. One of these schools is public, seven are church affiliated, four are peasant community schools, and the other fivr are private initiatives. Their common denominator is their efforts to offer education to their communities and to improve quality in a country where the State doesn't bring services to the majority of its people.

Most of these teachers have had only 6 to 8 years of very low quality formal education and don't even master the contents of the official school program for the first six years of fundamental school. In their communities however, they are the best ones to do the job; others, more educated, have left to go work in the cities. Tipa Tipa supports their efforts by offering building improvements, pedagogical materials and, most of all, teacher training. By so doing, Tipa Tipa addresses the problem of educating the most marginalized people in the country, those living in rural mountainous areas of Haiti, a large percentage of the total population.

Teacher training is carried out at the model training school of Port-au-Prince and on sites; two other training centers are in preparation, in rural areas. Training is given, not only in SBS methodology but also in sciences (experimental and social), mathematics, language development, art and French as a second language. The objective is to get them to really master the content of the official school program for the first 6 years of fundamental school. Extended and enriched, with an emphasis on experimental sciences and mathematics. These teachers’ dedication to educate young people of their communities is one of the expressions of their efforts to survive marginalization from a state that has never offered services to the majority of its population.

Our challenge is to turn these people with such disadvantaged backgrounds into good teachers of young children, using the SBS approach of individualization, starting where they are at and building capacities. Another challenge is to get the State's teacher training institutions interested in our approach. Our political situation has been so unstable in the last years, that we've not been able to get our decision makers to get involved.

Most Unique Program Feature

Tipa Tipa works with organized communities, people who put together their efforts toward a common goal: The improvement of their children's education.

Edited by Michael Kalinowski