The President of Niger, Mohamed Bazoum on Wednesday in Niamey launched a project to improve teaching and learning conditions.
Education is one of the major components of the campaign program of Mohamed Bazoum. The Learning Improvement for Results in Education (LIRE) project is funded by the International Development Association (IDA).
In his speech, Mahamadou Issoufou’s successor diagnosed Niger’s education system: “(It) faces problems characterised by, among other things, a constant low gross enrolment and retention rate, low enrolment of young girls, an often inadequate level of teacher training, the remoteness of schools in pastoral areas, unsuitable curricula, insufficient infrastructure as well as unsuitable pedagogical methods and teaching tools.”
This is a non-exhaustive list of problems that the Nigerien Head of State wants to tackle over the next five years. Bazoum said that he attaches “particular importance to education” because he is convinced that “man is the most precious capital.”
This postulate allows him to say that “investing in education is investing in this capital.” According to the former Minister of the Interior, the LIRE project “seems particularly important” insofar as it addresses “the weakness of learning capacities and (that of) the capacity of teachers” considered as “the heart of the difficulties” of the Nigerien education system.
Despite a tense security context with the omnipresence of the jihadist threat, the government of Niger, according to the head of the executive, is working to achieve all the objectives it has set itself in education.
But, the former Foreign Minister pointed out, difficulties in mobilising more domestic resources and an increase in security spending are affecting the state’s ability to adequately fund the education system.
On this basis, he asked “the World Bank (and) all of Niger’s other partners to increase the resources dedicated” to this sector because “it is the best way to guarantee the chances of development” of his country.
Bazoum concluded his speech on a note of hope: “I am convinced that, at the end of the implementation of the LIRE project, some of the most worrying problems of our education system will be solved to the great happiness of children and their parents.”
ID/lb/abj/APA