Improving the Chadian education system - Enfants du monde Improving the Chadian education system - Enfants du monde

Improving the Chadian education system

Chad is facing a serious humanitarian crisis and persistent food insecurity; frequent forced displacement and intercommunity conflicts impact many families. In such a context, education suffers too, which compromises the future of the country. Enfants du Monde, on behalf of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the French Development Agency  (FDA), improves the teachers’ training thanks to its programmes. We use active learning, lessons in local and national languages, and the use of topics that are familiar to the children, such as water, animal breeding or agriculture, as well as tales, for teaching different subjects.

Habiba and Gédéon live in a hut like these.

On the way to school

«We have decided to send two of our children to school, it’s a long way away but they are learning well now; this will help all of us » says this father from Moyen-Chari, in the South of the country.

 

The day starts early for Habiba and her brother Gédéon. They are 11 and 12 years old. They wake up at dawn in the mud hut where they live with their parents and their seven brothers and sisters. The sun hasn’t risen yet. They get ready for school. Before they leave, Habiba has to help her mother to draw water from the village well. Then she quickly eats a dish of boiled millet with her brother and they set off on their two kilometre walk to school.

The classrooms are made of straw

Classes are in Sar and French, so that everybody understands

The school is a structure with a straw roof, divided into several classrooms. Classes begin at 7 o’clock. They are held in French, one of the country’s two official languages, and in Sar, the local language, as the young children don’t speak French yet when they start school. Today, the teacher is using a tale to teach grammar and conjugation. These tales from the oral tradition were collected in the area by our local team and made into an efficient teaching tool, as they are good for catching the pupils’ attention.

Sometimes 80 pupils in a class with only one teacher

Classes are packed, with up to 80 pupils; thanks to their training, the teachers are able to handle work group and give each child an active role. Habiba shares a textbook with her brother, because there are not enough to go around. The teacher hands them out at the beginning of each school day and gathers them at the end of the lessons to put them away.

The children don’t have a school bag, but a slate and a stick of chalk

Habiba and Gédéon don’t have a school bag, but they do have a slate and a stick of chalk to write during classes, as well as a homework notebook. During the breaks, the children play in the dusty playground. The heat can reach 40°C and over.

In the afternoon, the children help their parents in the fields.

Poverty is inevitably a brake on schooling

At lunchtime they go home and have fufu with their family; then they help their parents in the fields. In the evenings, as there is no electricity, they do their homework by the light of an oil lamp.

In Chad, a lot of girls drop out of school because of early marriage related to poverty. Habiba enjoys school, but her future depends on her parents and the circumstances.

Despite the Chadian government promising free education, the state budgets don’t cover the wages of all the teachers, and the parents have to pay tuition fees. Those who can’t pay can’t send their children to school.

Quality education

The pupils in schools supported by Enfants du Monde get better results in languages and mathematics compared to those in other schools. This is how we can measure the success of the Enfants du Monde programmes: the children who go to school get a decent education and learn better.

This text was written following an interview with Thierry Benodji, state agent, teacher trainer and maths trainer, pedagogical facilitator at the area centre for teacher in-service training in Sarh.

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