Massification and the public financing of higher education in Haiti: issues and challenges
| Published date | 01 June 2020 |
| Date | 01 June 2020 |
| Author | Sergot Jacob |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852318781457 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Massification and the
public financing of
higher education in Haiti:
issues and challenges
Sergot Jacob
Quisqueya University, Haiti
Abstract
Haitian higher education is changing, but is little studied. This article examines the
conditions under which massification recently occurred, on the one hand, and the
extent of the inadequacy of public funding since the 1980s, on the other. It highlights
that despite faster mass supply to address a social demand that is also rising sharply, the
meagre public funding (on average, 0.33% of gross domestic product, and 1.17% of
the state budget) devoted to the financing of public universities over the last 30 years
has hindered their development. In fact, despite the modest increase in the budget of
public universities compared to the state budget, massification ultimately resulted in a
reduction in expenditure per student, which does not help to create the conditions for
an acceptable level of quality education, and deprives the sector of its ability to play
an effective role in the socio-economic development process of the country by first
putting itself in a position to reflect on the problems of society and on its evolution.
Points for practitioners
The system of virtually free studies, funded by the taxpayer, has reached its limits, while
institutional mechanisms for regulating massification are essential to protect the
consumer and counter the decline in the quality of education. To carve out a better
position for the country on the world stage and benefit from the positive externalities
of higher education, more public resources must be invested in it. The stake is
therefore triple as means must be found, which must be differentiated, not only to
fund the universities and the studies themselves, but also to diversify this funding given
the limited resources of the state.
Corresponding author:
Sergot Jacob, Quisqueya University (Haiti), BP 19188, Port-au-Prince, HT6112 Haiti.
Email: sergotjacob@gmail.com
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
2020, Vol. 86(2) 349–367
!The Author(s) 2018
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0020852318781457
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
Keywords
administration in transition, developing countries, planning, public management, strategy
Introduction
The funding of universities and studies is a global issue that is increasingly coming
under the spotlight (see Brunner, 2013; Oketch, 2016; The
´lot, 2006; Trannoy, 2006;
Gary Bobo and Trannoy, 2015; World Bank, 2010), not only because it conditions
the development of these institutions, but also because it conditions the economic
trajectory and the positioning of these countries in the globalised economy. In
Haiti, this problem arises with a complex acuity as several major phenomena
have been juxtaposed by the force of events: the massification of the demand for
higher education, first, and that of the offer, second. The problem was further
exacerbated by the destruction during the 2010 earthquake of most of the educa-
tional infrastructure concentrated in the capital, prompting the government to
extend, to peripheral departments, its second public higher education network
(public universities in the region (UPRs)), which took their first faltering steps in
2007. Until recently, the State University of Haiti (UEH), created by decree in 1960
on the basis of a first group of higher education institutions dating from the 1940s,
was the only major public higher education network and absorbed the bulk of
public funding and students. Yet, it has been steeped in crisis for many years (see
Dorvilier, 2013; Moisset, 2013), and its current situation deprives it of its role in
the production and dissemination of knowledge that the country so desperately
needs for its process of socio-economic development.
The lack of financial resources suffered by universities has sometimes been
tackled in political debate and by some authors since 1988. These authors – who
tend to focus only on the UEH and the very short term – do not touch on the
funding issue as a whole, nor that of massification. They tend to focus on
the governance of the UEH (Moisset, 2013), alternative funding and human
resource strategies (Paul and Michel, 2013), historical aspects of the UPRs, or,
again, the organisation of the offer (GTEF, 2010; Mathurin, 1997). This article
serves to bridge this double gap. How did the massification of higher education
take place in Haiti? What is the extent of the inadequacy of public funding allo-
cated to this sub-sector during the last 30 years? These are the two questions that
this article attempts to answer. The rest of the article reviews the literature,
explains the data and the methodology used, and explores recent changes in
Haitian higher education and public funding, before setting out its conclusion.
Literature review
Contemporary theories – the theory of human capital and the theory of endogenous
growth (Assidon, 2002; Guellec and Ralle, 2003) – highlight higher education as an
350 International Review of Administrative Sciences 86(2)
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