ABSTRACT
If the political class could lay claim to having undertaken serious efforts to broaden access to one seemingly important “thing” since Haiti’s independence in 1804, it was primary schooling. Self-interests guiding such efforts flowed logically from political dynamics within the class. Parents inside the class valued education for their offspring and demanded schools and educators. For these and other reasons, proponents of education constituted a natural, broad-based faction within the political class. Unopposed until relatively recently by competing factions demanding resources for agriculture, industry, or public health, the proponents exerted considerable political influence over much of the last 180 years, especially after 1950. Though largely illiterate, most leaders of the newly-liberated country put establishment of an extensive public education system high on their list of goals warranting achievement.
