Hibernia College, founded by Dr Sean Rowland in 1999, is a distance training institute that trains national teachers in Ireland. Hibernia is preparing to train a maximum of 5,000 teachers in Haiti over the next two years.

Dr Rowland, who has been working to develop the National Institute for Teacher Education in Haiti for more than three years, hopes it will shortly begin to recruit between 3,000 and 5,000 teachers to train them in a newly developed programme due to start this autumn "We presented the final blueprint to the government last week" he said.

This training will be given in French and Creole and will target teachers who are already in schools, in order to improve the quality of education in Haiti through a program designed by Haitians in association with Hibernia.

Microsoft and Hewlett Packard are offering technical assistance so that the teachers can participate in the programmes. Funds to support their training have been pledged by international donors such as the International American Development Bank (IDB), the World Bank and as a private partner the phone company Digicel.

Hibernia, which has an office in London, trains teachers in every county in the UK and has also won an EU-wide bid to provide education programmes across Europe.

S/ HaitiLibre