Niger

Niger Education and Training Project

 

Description of the prevailing situation

 

Niger displays enormous gaps in its education system. Preschools do not as yet even have a legal text regulating their status or that of their teaching staff; at the primary school level, we observe a very high proportion of children repeating their years or abandoning altogether; those attaining college level education only represent 13.11% (in 2000), and there are serious disparities between urban and rural zones, as well as between boys and girls (in 2000, girls only represented 39% of college students), and the level of repeating is high at an estimated 21% (39% in the 3rd year), while the college drop out rate is 27,75%. Add to these issues of teaching quality (in 2000, 30% of the staff of schools were so-called “educational volunteers”, having no pedagogical training) and deficient infrastructure, and a situation emerges leaving a great deal to be desired.

The Niger Education and Training Project (Le Projet d'Education et de Formation au Niger, PEFN) aims to improve that nation’s education system.

 

 

Project description

 

The mission of the PEFN is to put into place all the elements necessary for the creation of a secondary schooling system capable of imbuing the next generation with a sense of responsibility for the kind of development that is profoundly rooted in their own culture, while at the same time open to the ideals of world citizenship and civilization. The project aims to develop a “tree” of new educational materials sharing a common “trunk”, that can be taught in all classes from 3rd to 6th year.

In concrete terms, courses will need to be drawn-up that target the “Development of Capacities” for 4th and 5th year pupils, as well as training 20 teachers, thus touching a total of 150 pupils during the project’s lifespan. The pilot-project school, Enoch Olinga, is situated in the Dar es Salam quarter of Niamey in Niger. A Research and Training Centre has been created, thus ensuring that the work initiated by the PEFN will be pursued further. In addition, the school will see to the continuation of the project, inasmuch as the trainer will be integrated into the staff.

 


 
Duration of the project:  2003-2005
 

 

 

Budget

 

 

 

 

year 1

 

year 2

Total €

MAE

17.508

17.508

35.015

UF

5.836

5.836

11.672

TOTAL

23.344

23.344

46.687

 

"Quoi qu'il en soit, cette éducation, pour être efficace et fructueuse, devrait être en accord avec la nature humaine et prendre en considération aussi bien ses aspects physique et intellectuel, que spirituel et éthique."

- Shoghi Effendi -