What they thought of the education forums organized in their provinces

Participants from a wide range of backgrounds took part in the education forums organized in the provinces of the Project for Improving the quality of education through strengthening school-community collaboration (PAQER-CEC). Three (03) of them were kind enough to share with JICA their feelings and opinions about these fora.

Mr. Sako Madou, principal of the Barouli school in the Sourgoubila Basic Education District (CEB), took part in the forum as a representative of the “Syndicat National des Travailleurs de l'Education de Base” (SYNATEB). He is very appreciative of PAQER-CEC's approach of involving the unions in the forum: "As a union, we were invited to discuss the issue of the endogenous canteen, in particular how to get community members to contribute more, as the endogenous canteen is very important for pupils".
In fact, in the province of Kourwéogo, a survey revealed a shortfall in the number of meals served to pupils. More concretely, during the 2022/2023 school year, out of 140 meals required per pupil, only 73 were provided; and out of these 73 meals, only 3 meals were provided by the community effort , and 70 meals by the government and its technical and financial partners.
Mr. Sako contributed to the search for solutions to this situation: "We have made resolutions and commitments that we will implement, in particular we will plead with our supporters and sympathizers to get more involved in promoting the endogenous canteen."

Ms. Ouédraogo Ursule, representative of the “Association des Mères Educatrices” (AME) de Meguet in the Ganzourgou province, explains the reasons for her participation in the education forum in Zorgho: "Our participation in this forum aims to help pupils pass their exams. We want to ensure that out of one hundred (100) children, at least ninety (90) can obtain the primary school certificate at the end of the year”.
The Ganzourgou provincial forum on education was held under the theme "Improving CEP results in Ganzourgou province: difficulties and solutions". Mrs. Ouedraogo, who took an active part in the discussions, stressed the important role played by mothers in achieving the forum's objectives: "We, mothers, have to support our children, feed them properly, get them clean and give them time to learn their lessons. We must do this to facilitate the work of the teachers.”

In the Bazèga province, discussions also focused on improving school results, under the theme "Reinforcing strategies to maintain or improve the CEP success rate of 76.73% in the Bazèga province".
Mr. Compaore Kuilga Samuel, in charge of education at the Toécé town hall in the Bazèga province, took part in the forum as representative of the president of the “Coordination Communale des Coges” (CCC) of Toécé’s commune. He was a significant help during the forum, volunteering to translate the content and speeches into Mooré, a national language. He appreciates his participation in this forum in these terms: "It was a pleasure to take part in these exchanges; we were already honored that our commune was part of the project's implementation zone, and thanks to this forum, we were able to exchange ideas between partners with the aim of improving the quality of education in our province. In the group where we worked, we committed ourselves to making the case to the special delegations so that together we could popularize school fields, school gardens and the collection of endogenous foodstuffs. We have also undertaken to support the supervisors by advocating that they be provided with fuel and means of transport to enable class visits. Lastly, we are going to focus on raising parents' awareness of the need to collaborate more closely with teachers, because no pupil can succeed without a synergy of actions between parents and teachers. We will be using sketches, theater forums and radio broadcasts to achieve our objectives.”

Kaliguetta OUIBGA
Education/Health Program Officer