A contract lecturer at an entity of the State University of Haiti (UEH) was paid 694 gourdes per hour in 2024, an amount only slightly higher than the minimum wage for domestic workers, which was set at 500 gourdes under the national minimum wage scale in force
A tenured professor at an entity of the State University of Haiti received only 20,461.04 gourdes after deductions for the month of July 2026 for two two-hour teaching assignments, or four hours of classes per week. This salary is equivalent to 1,278.81 gourdes per teaching hour, or 783.69 gourdes less than a tenured secondary-school teacher who also teaches four hours per week.
Four UEH professors interviewed by AyiboPost denounce what they describe as poverty wages. “You can’t do anything with the University’s salary,” laments Malherbe Charles, a professor at the National Institute of Administration, Management and Advanced International Studies (INAGHEI). According to Charles, who is appointed to teach two courses at INAGHEI, the State and the UEH exploit professors, which, in his view, reflects a lack of consideration for “those who train the intellectual elite.”
According to several brokers, tenants pay at least 20,000 gourdes per month for a room in a house in Delmas. A university professor must then buy food, pay for electricity and transportation, not to mention the other financial responsibilities that add to these expenses.
A tenured secondary-school teacher receives, even when teaching between four and eight hours per week, a gross monthly salary of 23,000 gourdes, or 18,000 gourdes net. In addition, there is a monthly salary supplement of 15,000 gourdes “by cheque while awaiting the availability of debit cards,” according to information confirmed by Josué Mérilien, coordinator of the National Union of Haitian Teacher-Training Graduates (UNNOH). The total compensation of a tenured secondary-school teacher therefore amounts to 33,000 gourdes after required deductions, corresponding to a net hourly wage of 2,062.5 gourdes for teachers giving four hours of classes per week, 1,375 gourdes for those teaching six hours, and 1,031.25 gourdes for those teaching eight hours.
“It is unacceptable that a secondary-school teacher, for whom even a bachelor’s degree is not required, earns a better salary than a UEH professor who trains the intellectual elite and must hold at least a master’s degree,” laments Professor Charles.
The UEH rectorate does not publish the list of contractual professors or their salaries. The institution was contacted to obtain its version of events. It had not responded before publication.
Adjunct professors and full-time professors at the UEH share the same frustrations. Full-time professors, in principle, devote 35 hours per week to their respective faculties. Adjunct professors and contractual instructors, meanwhile, teach only a few hours per week. Unlike tenured professors, whose paychecks come directly from the Ministry of Economy and Finance, contractual instructors are paid through the operating funds of their respective faculties.
A full-time professor who has been teaching at one of the UEH faculties for nearly eighteen years says that the salary paid by the faculty does not even allow him to feed himself properly, much less support his family.
Holding a doctorate, this professor earns a gross salary of 113,500 gourdes and a net salary of 76,500 gourdes (about US$590), in accordance with the salary scale of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, adjusted in 2022.
He estimates the monthly cost of public transportation to reach his faculty at 20,000 gourdes and spends as much as 100,000 gourdes per month to feed his family of four. “No professor at the State University of Haiti can, without additional sources of income, claim to be adequately fed,” says the professor, who requested anonymity for security reasons.
Some professors, such as Malherbe Charles, view their work at the UEH as a form of exploitation. “You are paid only for the hours spent teaching in the classroom, while I can spend three hours at home preparing the course,” Charles complains, explaining that he must also dedicate part of his income to maintaining a decent appearance. For the professor who has been teaching at a UEH faculty for nearly 18 years, the authorities must adjust their salary policy to ensure that professors are compensated in accordance with the quality and importance of their work, while also encouraging their professional development, something he believes the University fails to do.
“When I returned from my master’s degree in Martinique in 2011, I expected my salary to be adjusted immediately, but that was not the case,” he complains.
A professor in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, who also requested anonymity, agrees with that assessment. “At the State University of Haiti, the number of research publications a professor produces and the academic credentials they accumulate mean nothing. With them or without them, it’s all the same,” he says.
Contractual professors, at least at the Institute of African Studies and Research of Haiti (IERAH) and at INAGHEI, are paid on an annual or biannual basis.
One of them was paid 125,000 gourdes for teaching two courses consisting of 30 three-hour sessions each, which amounted to less than 694.44 gourdes per hour as a contract lecturer in 2024, representing 180 hours of teaching for the year. This rate is only slightly higher than the minimum wage for domestic workers, set at 500 gourdes under the national minimum wage scale adopted that year.
The professor prefers to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the issue.
This article was updated at 6:20 p.m. on November 2, 2026, to correct a calculation error in the final paragraph.
By : Doroty Derat
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