BOUKAN NEWS,  10/06/2025 – Minister of National Education Antoine Augustin has promised to open school doors. Yet less than a month earlier, this same minister, his voice trembling, shocked the public by confessing: “Lekòl a kraze” (the school system is collapsing).

Th – is cry did not come from an outside observer but from the man charged with directing the school system. How can he simultaneously denounce total collapse and now claim everything is ready to welcome students?

During a YouTube/Facebook broadcast, Antoine Augustin attempted candor, even brutality, describing buildings in ruins, discouraged teachers, abandoned students, and school zones controlled by gangs. “Lekòl a kraze,” he declared, as if he bore no responsibility.

Yet who occupies this strategic position, if not him? Who has the duty to propose solutions and mobilize the state, if not him? His cry resembles less an admission of lucidity than a moral resignation—a minister who weeps but does not govern.

No slogan or calendar date can mask the reality. In 2024, 284 schools were destroyed, including 47 burned in January 2025 in Port-au-Prince, according to UNICEF. The Education Cluster reported 959 institutions closed by late January 2025. UNICEF data reveals one in seven children already excluded from the school system, with nearly one million at risk of permanent dropout.

The UN reports 1.3 million internally displaced persons, many housed in schools, converted to shelters where desks have become beds. Gang recruitment of children increased by 70% in 2024, with Reuters noting that up to half of gang members are minors.

This is the backdrop for today’s “opening”—an opening onto rubble.

To create the illusion of a viable school year, Augustin brandishes a few figures: MonCash subsidies for parents, “48 national schools already operational” in the capital, and symbolic payment of a fourteenth month to civil servants. These are bandages on a corpse.

There is no clear plan to rebuild destroyed schools, no strategy to secure school zones, no solid mechanism to retain teachers, and no solution for displaced families still living in classrooms. Yet he dares claim, “The country is ready for the opening of classes.”

This announced reopening is not educational policy but performance. It creates the illusion of a functioning state, forces families into an impossible choice between school and survival, and transforms education into a mirage when it should be a right.

Today’s school opening is a collective lie, media coverage designed to mask ministerial failure.

Mr. Minister,

You declared before the entire nation: “Lekòl a kraze” (Haiti’s school system is collapsing). You are neither a journalist nor an outraged citizen. You are the head of the school system. When you weep over ruins, they are your own ruins.

Now you dare announce a reopening? You are not opening schools, Mr. Minister—you are opening an abyss.

You send children to sit on nonexistent desks, listen to absent teachers, and study in rooms occupied by displaced families. You demand they traverse gang-controlled neighborhoods to learn to read. You call this education? This is betrayal.

You are not reopening schools; you are condemning a generation.

You know the truth: without security, schools are lawless zones. Without paid teachers, classrooms are empty shells. Without buildings, education is merely a hollow slogan.

By claiming to reopen classes, you lie to the country, insult parents, and abandon children. History will not remember your cry of truth but your hypocrisy: having said “Lekòl a kraze”… then orchestrating its sham resurrection.

Mr. Minister, when a leader admits “everything is broken” yet charges ahead regardless, he no longer governs—he betrays.

Today, Minister Antoine Augustin, you are not opening classes. You are opening a gaping wound in the national conscience. Education is not a political stage but a promise of the future. Under your direction, that promise has already been shattered.

Today, the greatest danger to Haitian education is not merely gangs or poverty. It is having a minister who cries “everything is destroyed”… but chooses to pretend anyway.

Pierre Richard Raymond. New York , USA Educator 10/01/25

Sources:

UNICEF. (2025). Haiti education crisis statistics. UNICEF Haiti.

Education Cluster. (2025). School closure data, Haiti. Education Cluster Haiti Reports.

United Nations. (2025). Internal displacement and humanitarian situation in Haiti. UN OCHA.

Reuters. (2024). Gang recruitment of children in Haiti. Reuters Investigative Reports. Face book source: https://www. facebook.com/share/v/175CY3ZJt2/