USAID/Guinea: USAID/Guinea Completes 10-Year Education Strategy, Looks Ahead

APRIL 26, 2007

USAID/Guinea Completes 10-Year Education Strategy, Looks Ahead

Mission recognizes partners and accomplishments as it nears the end of its 10-year education strategy.

CONAKRY -- USAID/Guinea last week observed the completion of its 10-year education strategy by recognizing the efforts of public and private partners who touched the lives of thousands of Guinean students, parents, teachers and school officials.

In a ceremony at the Palais du Peuple, USAID surveyed results of the program - entitled Niveaux Fondamentaux de Qualité et d'Equité or fundamental quality and equity levels (NFQE/FQEL) - carried out in collaboration with the two Guinean government ministries and eight international and Guinean non-governmental organizations.

Overall, the 10-year strategy represented a $64 million investment in Guinea's education system, including $16 million contributed by the government of Guinea.

Recipients of awards under the Ambassador's Girls Scholarship Program participated in the end-of-strategy ceremony.

The education strategy aimed for four results: 1) improved strategic planning, management and decision making, 2) improved training of administrators, teachers and teacher trainers, 3) community participation in school administration, and 4) improved educational opportunities for girls and for rural students.

Through the NFQE/FQEL project, USAID/Guinea trained 27,000 teachers, 3,000 school directors and 3,000 teacher trainers, for a total of more than 1.4 million hours of training, according to Thelma Khelghati, chief of party for NFQE/Guinea Links. The project also distributed a variety of educational materials, including 65,526 posters, 438,452 exercise books, 171,500 textbooks and 40,763 teaching guides.

Through PACEEQ (Participation Communautaire à l'Education de Base pour l'Equité et la Qualité), another project in the strategy, USAID/Guinea trained more than 1,200 parents associations, know as APEAEs, in various topics related to the co-management of schools, according to Seni Diop, PACEEQ's chief of party.

In addition, PACEEQ engaged and trained members of several dozen local and national alliances and provided literacy training to 13,438 participants, including 7,383 women; post-literacy training was provided to an additional 2,000 people. And in an effort to encourage girls to stay in school, PACEEQ distributed 21,000 packages of school and household supplies under the Ambassador's Girls Scholarship Program (AGSP).

Nine recipients of AGSP scholarships attended the ceremony, with one reading a statement drew an enthusiastic response from attendees: "Today, I and my sisters have ambition to pursue our studies in order to become women doctors, teachers, pilots, engineers, chef executives, ministers -- why not president? -- so as to better participate in the social and economic development of our country."

The USAID/Guinea education strategy "enabled us not only to achieve tangible results in education, but also to lay a foundation for the success of new programs we will carry out together in the future," said Julie Winn, deputy chief of mission for the U.S. Embassy.

USAID/Guinea's new strategy states that "the main blockages to advances in economic growth, agriculture, NRM, health, and education is the performance of the government. Before USAID can have an impact on improved service delivery or improved livelihoods, it must first address the governance constraints that impeded development in these areas."

That direction agrees with Dr. Ousmane Souaré, who was recently appointed minister of National Education and Scientific Research as part of Guinea's new government under Prime Minister Lansana Kouyaté.

"You know it already, but I repeat without hesitation: My government shares completely the objectives of USAID's new strategy," Souaré said, "because we want school to be a place for training responsible citizens, who are necessary to carry on the fight against fraud and corruption in schools and universities."

Story and photos by Richard Stirba