Education

In this report we distinguish between kindergartens, elementary schools and higher education.

Can I touch my left ear with my right hand?

Kindergartens

Accomplished since 1998

• Four kindergartens were built by local contractors. All the necessary materials were bought and fabricated locally.
• Four women have completed a two year training programme to become early childhood educators.
• Ten mothers have completed a four month training to become "help mothers" or "petite maman".

Results and Impact

• Children are better prepared for elementary school;
• Children are healthier thanks to extra meals and better hygiene;
• The children's horizons are expanded;
• Children motivate their parents to practice better hygiene.

Challenges

•  Finding sufficient funds, since parents cannot afford full costs (which are €65,- per child per year)
• Maintaining the quality of the education

Elementary Schools

Boy with lunchbox

Accomplished since 1999

In all, 14 primary schools have been built or extended. Also 47 houses for teachers have been built. In addition, each school has its own water well, and 9 schools have a vegetable garden. 9 villages have libraries (containing 700 books per library) that are lit with the use of solar panels.

Each school is provided with a lunch programme, resulting in 2.666 children being fed at school in 2010. ASAP also provides the necessary school supplies. This depends on how much the government provides the schools. In the meantime, ASAP has supplied 3000 school books. We have organized four training sessions for teachers. Moreover, we have implemented a performance-based bonus system which depends on the number of children that complete school and leave with a diploma.

Results and Impact

School-aged children compared to the total number of children

Percentage of children that pass their exam in the 6th year

The number of children attending school since 2002 has increased by 291%. On average, about 83% of the students finish school; however this number changes drastically from village to village. The graduation percentage in 2009-2010 has dropped from 74% to 44%. One of the causes for this decrease is the large percentage of female teachers. The women in Burkina Faso have a right of 3 months pregnancy leave. During their leave there is no substitute for those teaching hours. Therefore, some children will not go to school for months in a row.

Challenges

It is important that parents and students stay motivated to finish school and plan for continuing education. We must help make these plans possible by offering scholarships, and the creation of continuing education opportunities. Thus, it is important to improve the quality of local (and post primary) education. We do this by finding funds for temporary substitutes for teachers who go on pregnancy leave. We constantly work to reduce the number of children that leave school without graduating. We have had some successes, but there is always room for improvement.

Continuing Education

Three girls with a scholarship

Accomplished since 2008

In the last years, 54 children have gotten scholarships to go to a secondary school. The last years, this number has increased considerably. Since 2007, new scholarship students have gone to a boarding school, yielding better results than those attending rural secondary schools. Also 14 boys and 26 girls have received scholarships for vocational education.

Results and Impact

Boarding school for girls

The impact of scholarships still shows dubious results. However, we are seeing increased motivation in the primary school children since they are growing up with the opportunity of continuing education. Teachers are also increasingly motivated since they are seeing the potential and possibility for their students to progress past primary education. In addition, scholarship children are sharing their experiences with those in their villages (we have electricity and running water at boarding school; I met someone who started their own company).

Challenges

We need to find sufficient funding to continue the programme. We also want to help to facilitate the contact between students and their families when they are 100 km or farther from home. It is not easy to find quality secondary education close to the native villages of the students. We also want to offer students the opportunity to pursue professional vocations, especially those that meet any needs of their villages. It is also challenging to inspire children to choose vocations other than those in the civil service (students do not know if there is a need for farmers, nurses or teachers and end up choosing the last). We also want to help the students plan for their futures: What to do after high school/professional training?

Private Agricultural Secondary School

Preparations Agricultural Secondary School

The ASAP foundation wants to offer children in rural Burkina Faso the opportunity to go to a Private Agricultural Secondary School. The school has opened its doors to 70 children in October 2011. After 6 years of primary education, children are able to follow rural public secondary school education. The study results are currently extremely poor due to for example a lack of teachers. Less than 10% of the students pass their exams after 4 years of secondary education. The children that will follow the new 4 year secondary education will be between age 12 and 15. Each year only 70 children can enrol in the school. Nearly 100% of the rural population lives from agriculture. By providing good education, the level of the Agricultural sector will be improved.

Training of teachers

Due to the difficult living and working conditions and the lack of stimulation by the Ministry of Education, the teachers at the schools in remote villages are often young, inexperienced or too old and unwanted. Moreover, the duration of the teacher's education has been brought back from two to one year of education. Next to that it is difficult for teachers to teach in classes with students from different ethnic backgrounds, different native languages, and sometimes there are two classes in one room. This leads to the poor education and the high failure rate. Which in turn has the consequence that parents are less motivated to send their children to school?

Through a short project, the teachers receive extra training. GREF, a French volunteering organisation consisting of retired teachers will give these trainings on site. The costs are limited to the costs of accommodation and transportation (locally and the flight to Burkina Faso) and the cost of materials used during the training.

However, the training of teachers is postponed to 2011, due to political unrest and the introduction of a new and complex primary education system in Burkina Faso.

Literacy Programme

In 2010 we again started the literacy programme. Three years ago we stopped the programme because of the disappointing results.

The new programme uses the Reflect method of Paulo Freire. This is a participatory method where the students can compile their own programmes for a large part. Thus, this leaves room for the issues that they find important. Furthermore, there are small-scale projects related to the topics the students have chosen themselves. These projects are funded by the literacy programme.

Since ASAP does not have the expertise to set up programmes according to the Reflect method, we use the expertise of the association Sirayiri. This association provides the coordination of more than 30 literacy centres.

The animators of the 6 ASAP literacy centres have had a training session of the association Sirayiri in 2010. These centres will open their doors in 2011.

Animation Programme

We have developed an animation programme in 2009. The animators provided workshops in traditional dancing, music, theatre for the young people in the villages. The goal was that every village would compile a group of youngsters to participate in the follow-up of the animation programme, developed in 2009.

We made a follow-up in the villages in 2010. In response to this follow-up we will resume the animation programme in 2011.

The aim of the animation programme is to create a bond between the Young people in the different villages. Furthermore, we want to preserve the old traditions.