Should Creole replace French in Haiti's schools? (BBC)

By Cordelia Hebblethwaite
BBC News

Creole is the mother tongue in Haiti, but children do most of their schooling in French. Two hundred years after Haiti became the world's first black-led republic, is the use of French holding the nation back?

"The percentage of people who speak French fluently is about 5%, and 100% speak Creole," says Chris Low.

"So it's really apartheid through language."

Ms Low is co-founder of an experimental school, the Matenwa Community Learning Center, which has broken with tradition, and conducts all classes in Creole.

Educating children in French may work for the small elite who are fully bilingual, she argues, but not for the masses.
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-14534703




Holy crap, I had no idea ... I realize the value of learning an 'international' language early in childhood, but this goes too far. Let kids start out in Creole and have the option of more classes in French with each passing year -- at the parents' or students' choice.

Better to communicate with their neighbors.

French used to be the international language of politics and science. No longer true.

This is similar to what you find in Italy, where standard Italian is the language taught at school, but everyone speaks dialetto at home. They should be taught the standard language with its standard grammar, and read the literature that goes along with it. Haitian Creole has an insignificant literature compared to French. If they only learn their local dialect, they are culturally confined to their half of the island. If they learn French, they can communicate with people in Africa, France, Belgium, and Canada and the world is more open to them.

Sure, their Creole has strayed quite a bit from the parent, and it will require learning, but that is what education is for.

edited to add: Educating the masses in Creole also works for the elite, for it leaves the masses prisoners of their own dialect.