Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Ouagadougou (Fides Service)- The local Church in Burkina Faso and a Swiss association have launched a joint programme to improve education in the African country. According to Swiss news agency APIC, Oeuvre Suisse d'Entraide Ouvrière OSEO and Burkina Faso’s National Catholic Education Office SNEC signed an agreement on 9 November to promote quality basic education all over the country.
According to OSEO the 1.2 million Swiss Francs necessary to run the programme for 2006 will be provided by the Dutch embassy, the Swiss Cooperation for Development and NGO Intermon, Spanish branch of OXFAM.
The 3 year agreement 2005 to 2007 is renewable. According to a local Burkina Faso newspaper the programme will identify alternative channels of basic quality education and promote instruction for girls and women. To tackle the problem of illiteracy at the roots, the programme will focus on primary instruction for children. “A programme of this type of education experimented from 1994 to 1998 proved very successful” said OSEO representative in Burkina Faso Paul Taryam Ilboudo.
Bishop Wenceslas Compaoré of Manga SNEC chairman said “with the help of OSEO we will be able to more and better quality school programmes and books”. The programme also includes opening of more schools and periodical evaluation to compare bilingual schools with ordinary one language schools.
In Burkina Faso, the Catholic Church runs 16 kindergartens with 1,739 children; 83 primary schools with 10,899 pupils; 44 middle and high schools with 13,161 students (Church’s Year Book of Statistics 2003). (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 18/11/2005 righe 30 parole 295)
