A delegation from the Ministry of National Education led by Méniol Jeune, the Director General of the Ministry completed on Sunday May 23 a 4-day evaluation tour in the departments of South and Grand'Anse with a view to strengthening school gardens, an extracurricular pilot project (launched in 2018) where students are involved in activities to improve their environment and their diet.

The delegation was able to verify and monitor the state of operation of school gardens in schools benefiting from the interventions of the Project for Quality Education in Haiti, financed by the World Bank in the Great South (by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in the far North) as well as from the Public Treasury.

For Meniol Jeune, this project intends to make students aware of the impact of human activity on the environment. He also believes it can help them conserve natural resources and species diversity.

This field mission also aimed to encourage and motivate those working in the field so that they become more actively involved in this positive approach for the environment. In this sense, the members of the delegation emphasized the importance of participatory structures in this project, particularly the School Councils which are made up of principal, teachers, students and parents.

According to Kendy Nicolas, coordinator of this transversal school activity, it is a question of transforming the pupils into real actors in the management and the protection of their environment. Several objectives are targeted through school gardens : transforming these gardens into real educational laboratories, while making experimental science and mathematics lessons more practical.

At the end of his tour, Méniol Jeune said he was satisfied with what he observed in various schools where gardens have been set up and where several crops have already been consumed by the students. While acknowledging that there are some corrections to be made, he praised the efforts of all those who contributed to the success of this pilot experiment which will extend through many more schools in the country, after a scientific evaluation shortly.

HL/ HaitiLibre