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 latest GPE-funded grant of US$37.8 million in Guinea (2015-2018) focuses on improving access and learning in basic education for under-served populations, and strengthening evidence-based management. The GPE grant contributes to a pooled fund to which France, IDA and UNICEF also contribute (France: US$12 million; UNICEF: US$1 million; IDA: US$1 million).
The three components of the pooled fund program are:
- Improve coverage and equity in access to basic education for in school and out-of-school children by providing new classrooms, latrines, wells, and furniture, as well as supporting the roll-out of new functional literacy campaigns.
- Improve the quality of teaching and learning conditions at the primary and lower secondary levels through teacher training and pedagogical support, providing teaching and learning materials, and improving decentralized and school-based management.
- Enhance the governance and management of the education sector through monitoring and evaluation to support an evidence-based approach to policy and strategy design.
The Ministry of Education leads the program with the World Bank as grant agent and UNICEF as coordinating agency.
Source: World Bank project appraisal document, July 2015 and restructuring paper, March 2016
Grants
All amounts are in US dollars.
| Grant type | Years | Allocations | Disbursements | Grant agent | |
| Program implementation | 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 | 2018-2019 | 218,055 | 218,055 | UNICEF | |
| 2017-2018 | 219,401 | 219,401 | UNICEF | ||
| 2013-2014 | 241,360 | 241,360 | World Bank | ||
| - | 200,000 | 0 | UNICEF | ||
| Program development | 2019-2020 | 200,000 | 0 | Agence Francaise de Developpement | |
| 2014 | 136,539 | 136,539 | World Bank | ||
| Total | 103,015,355 | 102,615,355 |
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.