EDUCATION-BURKINA FASO: UNICEF Boosts School Enrolment

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

EDUCATION-BURKINA FASO: UNICEF Boosts School Enrolment

By Brahima Ouedraogo OUAGADOUGOU, Feb 10 2003 (IPS) - The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is helping poor children in Burkina Faso to enrol in school.

Since UNICEF launched the programme in 1995, some 100,000 children have enrolled in 230 schools – all newly built – in this impoverished West African nation of 11 million people. Fifty-one percent of Burkinabe live below the poverty line of One U.S. dollar a day.

In the early 1990s, the government requested UNICEF to help it achieve its goal of universal education and get more children into school, especially in poorer, disadvantaged areas where school enrolment rates were low.

The children, who attend what is commonly known in Burkina Faso as satellite, or preparatory, schools, receive instruction in both French and local languages. After the first three years, they transfer to a regular, or traditional, school.

The passing rate in the satellite schools is 85 percent, as opposed to 42 percent in the traditional schools, according to a recent study by the university of Ouagadougou.

”We’re convinced that satellite schools, which grow out of the heart of the community, will assist the economies of these communities to flourish through adaptive training and education. The institution of the school has been too long alienated from realities, and from our culture,” said President Blaise Compaore, when he visited a satellite school in Gnagna, eastern Burkina Faso, in January.

Gnagna is one of Burkina Faso’s provinces where the rate of school attendance is less than 17 percent. Barely 10 percent of girls attend school – in a country where the attendance rate for both boys and girls is 43 percent.

”Schools need to be better adapted to our needs and the expectations of our communities,” said Compaore.

Satellite schools emphasise local issues such as nutrition, health, the raising and feeding of animals, gardening, hygiene and civic responsibility.

The schools are located in disadvantaged areas, usually four kilometres from regular elementary schools. The UNICEF representative in Burkina Faso, Joan French, says the proximity ”keeps the pupils both physically and culturally close to their home environment”.

UNICEF says the children are often too small to walk long distances – three to four kilometres – to school, and too poor to own bicycles. ”This arrangement, based on the participation of the families, aims to reduce poverty by preparing children for a better future,” says French.

”The project allows children, who would otherwise be excluded from the system, to have access to education,” says Mathieu Ouedraogo, the Minister of Basic Education and Literacy.

In certain provinces, parents have pulled their children out of traditional schools to send them to satellite schools.

”The schools are closer to home, but it also means that more girls attend,” adds Moumouni Compaore, the director of basic education in Gnagna province.

The school attendance rate for girls is about 36 percent in Burkina Faso, compared to 48 percent for boys. Satellite schools seek to increase female enrolment to 50 percent, and total enrolment – for both boys and girls – to 60 percent, by 2005.

Communities are organised into management committees. Everyone works together to make sure the schools function properly and that it receives the support of the community.

”The children, who attend traditional schools, do not learn things that are relevant to them. But at the satellite schools, they learn practical things like gardening, as well as bread baking, making honey, and feeding cattle,” says Mariam Lompo, a mother.

”My daughter is at the village school and I am watching her grow up. Not only is she learning how to do practical things in the home, but she is also learning how to read French. Someday, she might work in an office,” she adds.

Satellite schools are equipped with potable drinking water, latrines, and cafeterias. The World Food Programme (WFP) and Cathwell, a non-governmental organisation, have pledged to provide food for the school cafeterias in the 14 participating provinces, according to UNICEF.

Total funding for satellite schools is expected to reach 21 billion CFA (about 30 million U.S. dollars) by 2005. The main donors are The Netherlands, Norway, Canada, France and the United States.