New Brunswick Community College

Published purpose

The purpose of this project is to increase the quality of learning in basic education in Senegal by improving access to school textbooks for students enrolled in public elementary schools that are part of the Kaolack and Thiès academies, and to ensure better maintenance of textbook inventories in these academies. This objective will be achieved by implementing a school textbook repair program, building school awareness of the importance of textbook repairs, training school administrators and officials in decentralized governance structures in these jurisdictions on managing textbook inventories and providing schools with cabinets to store textbooks. The initiative involves developing a school textbook repair training program and a micro-enterprise management training module tailored to the Senegalese context. This training will be dispensed to some 120 repairers, recruited from within the ranks of unemployed youth, women and less-educated groups. Other project activities include conducting a school-level awareness campaign, training representatives of these schools in textbook repair and training officials in decentralized governance structures on the issues relating to inventory management and textbook repair. In addition, the 1,550 public elementary schools in these two jurisdictions will receive appropriate cabinets to ensure textbook durability. This project directly affects 1,550 schools and their communities, and creates 120 repairer jobs. In addition, a similar project implemented in Mali provides opportunities for knowledge transfer and a South-South collaboration based on the repairers trained in Mali, whose experience could be leveraged in Senegal. The project is implemented by the Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick in collaboration with the Government of Senegal. This project complements the Government of Canada’s current programming in the education sector, and helps supply textbooks at the elementary level. In addition to prolonging the life of school textbooks by at least 3 years and helping the State realize potential annual savings of nearly $1M, the initiative has a positive environmental impact and helps increase local populations’ incomes in a lasting manner. This initiative is part of Senegal’s national education priorities as set out in the Program for Improvements to Quality, Equity and Transparency in Education and Training (PAQUET-EF) and the economic growth priorities outlined in the Emergent Senegal Plan.