COVID-19 response
Allocation: US$7 million
Years: 2020-2021
Grant agent: UNICEF
Key document: Application and program document
The US$7 million grant supports:
- learning continuity during school closure through producing and disseminating print, radio, TV and online materials
- vulnerable groups including girls, children in rural areas and children with disabilities through distribution of small radios, school canteens and printed learning materials
- back-to-school and social mobilization campaigns targeting girls, and producing guides based on a recently implemented accelerated education program for girls, in isolated areas. Attention will be given to welcoming pregnant girls and children who may have been victims of violence during the school closure in the best possible conditions
- safe reopening of schools through WASH programs, guidance for parents on school health, and psychosocial support.
In late March 2020, the UNICEF office in Guinea received a GPE grant of US$70,000 to support the Ministry of Education in planning its response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Education in Guinea
Guinea’s Strategic Poverty Reduction Document, the DSRP, identifies education and training as a priority sector and defines four national priorities for education:
- Continuing to work towards achieving universal primary education and expanding basic education, while reducing disparities.
- Improving the quality and relevance of teaching and learning at all levels.
- Developing better programs and training at technical, vocational, and higher education levels in line with national economic needs.
- Strengthening governance in the education sector by improving the efficiency of the system’s management and reinforcing the decentralization process.
Guinea has made considerable progress in recent years, particularly in increasing access to education. The education sector still deals with many challenges related to coverage, efficiency, quality, and equity.
The transitional Education Sector Plan 2015-2017, which has been extended until 2018, outlines numerous objectives related to access, quality, relevance, and governance. These include:
- Expand pre-school coverage and reduce disparities between rural and urban areas.
- Accelerate access and improve retention through school construction, teacher recruitment, and payment restructuring in difficult areas.
- Increase school demand through establishing canteens, distributing school supply kits, and social mobilization campaigns.
- Encourage girls’ enrollment and retention through creating associations of mothers and mentors, and providing training on the benefits of schooling.
- Develop inclusive schools for handicapped children to promote access through disability mapping.
- Improve access to college and increase the transition rate from primary to college for all children.
- Develop access to technical education and training that meets the skilled labor needs for the nation’s development.
- Invest in the creation and rehabilitation of schools for public training.
- Develop public-private partnerships for managing training institutions and modernize learning.
- Accommodate growing enrollment in higher education by restructuring the academics of major institutions, rehabilitating and extending existing infrastructure, revitalizing distance education, and promoting incentives to increase female access to scientific and technical studies.
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Latest grant
A girl solves a math problem on the blackboard. Alphabaria school, Dabola Area, Guinea. May 2016.
The €34 million grant supports a sector-wide pooled fund that uses a traceable budgetary support modality called the FCE/BAS (Fonds Commun de l’Éducation/Budget d’Affectation Spéciale, or Education Pooled Fund/Special Budget Allocation). The fund includes co-financing from AFD and UNICEF, for a total of €54.48 million.
GPE’s grant is composed of a fixed part of €23.82 million and a variable part linked to results of €10.21 million.
The FCE/BAS supports the implementation of the country’s 10-year education sector strategy and remains open for additional partners to join the common mechanism.
The program has the following objectives:
- Make access to basic education more equitable:
- expand of the existing school system through construction at the preschool, primary and lower secondary levels
- develop post-primary vocational training
- align with the country’s decentralization policy for education sector infrastructure work
- stimulate demand for education.
- Improve quality of learning in basic education:
- extend the basic education cycle to the first 10 years of formal schooling
- diversify options for upper secondary with an emphasis on more science and technology
- improve the quality of learning at all levels including performance on standardized testing, lower repetition and drop-out rates, employer satisfaction with school-leavers’ competencies, availability of pedagogical materials, in-service and pre-service teacher training, etc.
- Improve adequacy between education and the needs of the workplace:
- expand and adjust TVET programs to respond to the needs of students enrolling directly from primary school, from lower secondary and from upper secondary to meet the needs of the job market
- for higher education, place an emphasis on responding to the needs of the job market and scientific research.
- Improve efficiency in the education system:
- improve sector management and governance in the context of national deconcentration and decentralization policy
- strengthen sector coordination
- build capacity of various education system actors.
The proposed grant mechanism is considerably more aligned on national systems than the previous pooled fund, particularly in integration into the national budget following the national budget functional classification, budget expenditure process, procurement, and accounting.
Grants
All amounts are in US dollars.
| Grant type | Years | Allocations | Disbursements | Grant agent | |
| COVID-19 | 2020 | 7,000,000 | 0 | UNICEF | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Program implementation | 2020 | 37,899,994 * | 0 | Agence Francaise de Developpement | |
| 2015-2019 | 37,800,000 | 37,800,000 | World Bank | Progress report | |
| 2010-2014 | 40,000,000 | 40,000,000 | World Bank | Completion report | |
| 2010-2014 | 24,000,000 | 24,000,000 | UNICEF | ||
| Sector plan development | 2020-2023 | 200,000 | 0 | UNICEF | |
| 2018-2019 | 218,055 | 218,055 | UNICEF | ||
| 2017-2018 | 219,401 | 219,401 | UNICEF | ||
| 2013-2014 | 241,360 | 241,360 | World Bank | ||
| Program development | 2019-2020 | 200,000 | 0 | Agence Francaise de Developpement | |
| 2014 | 136,539 | 136,539 | World Bank | ||
| Total | 147,915,349 | 102,615,355 |
* This grant was approved in euros, for a total of 34,04 million euros.
Education sector progress
The graphs below show overall progress in the education sector in Guinea, and GPE data shows the country progress on 16 indicators monitored in the GPE Results Framework.
Source: World Bank - Education Data
Data on education are compiled by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics from official responses to surveys and from reports provided by education authorities in each country.