‘Build back better’
Nearly all of Haiti’s universities are based in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and all of them were damaged in the January 2010 earthquake that killed 300,000 people. Now, as Haiti seeks to rebuild its education system following the devastating quake, MIT can be of great assistance by sharing its expertise in technology-enabled education to build a superior system that will make quality education available to more residents of the beleaguered Caribbean nation. That was a key message to emerge last week at a two-day symposium attended by dozens of MIT faculty and staff, as well as Haitian university professors, administrators and technology experts. Hosted by MIT’s Office of Educational Innovation and Technology, the MIT-Haiti "Best Practices for Reconstruction" Symposium looked at the long-term, sustainable transformation of Haiti’s educational system.“Not only should we build facilities, but [we need to] build back better,” declared Michele Pierre-Louis, the former prime minister of Haiti and...