Wednesday at the Primature, the Prime Minister, Laurent Lamothe hosted an important meeting of evaluation of Universal Schooling Program Free and Compulsory (PSUGO), in order to take necessary steps to improve it. Surrounded, by among others : Ms. Juliette Euristil Phanor, Coordinator of PSUGO, Jean Marie Guillaume Director General of the National Council of Telecommunications (CONATEL) and Charles Castel, Governor of the Central Bank, the Prime Minister has reviewed the program and has adopted several measures to ensure its sustainability. Discussions also focused on the mechanisms to put in place to improve the PSUGO and meet the schooling demand at the primary level.

All actors involved in the PSUGO will now have to work together to ensure better management of the program, stressed the Prime Minister during the meeting. Henceforth, the Steering Committee of PSUGO, will include representatives from the Ministry of Economy and Finance, CONATEL and the Central Bank. Each member of the Commission shall have an assessor in order to prevent the institutions are absent in meetings.

The Prime Minister also agreed to the establishment of a Monitoring Committee, which will scan the PSUGO in detail in order to ensure that schools meet their commitments vis-à-vis the state. This structure should to be external to the Ministry of National Education to ensure a transparent and effective program management. However, it will act under the authority of the Government.

Laurent Lamothe has advocated the development of an action plan to facilitate the work of this Commission that he will meet every month with the Minister of Education, to take stock of its work.

Among the provisions adopted at this meeting was the creation of an application, available online, to locate the schools beneficiaries of PSUGO and verify the effectiveness of the program, while ensuring that these entities work according to the criteria of Ministry of Education. Agents of the Ministry, armed with "IPad" with location "GPS" will collect information that they will regularly transmit to the database of PSUGO. These measures are aimed at correcting the problems encountered during the 2012-2013 school year.

A survey of schools is already underway to facilitate a better evaluation of the program and the fight against fraud. So far, the Martelly administration has already contributed to the education of 1,200.000 children and intends double that number by 2015.

Alongside the PSUGO, the Government is already working on massive construction projects of public schools, which will enable in the longer term, to have new infrastructure that can accommodate a larger number of children.

HL/ HaitiLibre