The education system in Chad is among the poorest on the African continent in terms of access and quality. Only 37% of children complete primary education (28% of girls, 47% of boys). The illiteracy rate is estimated at 78%, mostly among women. Between 100,000 and 150,000 young people enter the job market each year without having completed at least primary school.
Education adapted to the needs
To address these issues, the SDC is supporting the Chadian government with a project that puts an emphasis on the quality of basic education and the development of educational opportunities for children who never attended school and illiterate adults, in particular girls and women. In a systemic approach that takes into account the different causes of the dysfunction of the education system, particular emphasis is placed on the child's immediate environment in order to promote education within the family. Parents' and mothers' associations are given support in order to ensure that they get involved in the running of the schools and at the same time to ensure they assume responsibility for their children's education.
An innovative approach to education
It is also with this in mind that the programme supports 60 literacy and alternative education centres, with the aim of giving a second chance to women and men who never attended school or who dropped out early. More than 2,000 illiterate adults have thus had the opportunity to learn the three Rs. The programme has also introduced interdisciplinary didactic sequences (IDSs) dealing with contextual themes such as water or malaria. These IDSs are innovative in comparison to the modules usually used. By drawing on themes that are very close to the experiences of communities and their reality, the text becomes a basis for addressing them. This facilitates learning in reading, writing and arithmetic, while at the same time creating changes in attitudes and behaviours among the beneficiaries in relation to the issues addressed: How should well water be treated? What are the consequences of FGM (female genital mutilation) ? How can certain diseases be prevented?