BUJUMBURA April 18th (ABP) – The Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of National Education and Scientific Research, Mr. Frédéric Bangirinama, opened on Tuesday, April 11, 2023, a two-day workshop to present the results of the evaluation the quality of textbooks, in collaboration with CONFERMEN and UNESCO.
In his speech, Mr. Bangirinama said that this evaluation will help to correct the errors contained in the textbooks and to prepare the textbooks which will be used in the future.
Speaking, the Regional Education Coordinator at the UNESCO Office for Central Africa, Mr. Hilaire Mputu said that UNESCO promises to continue and strengthen its support to the government of Burundi in its transformation effort education in order to provide the country with quality human resources, to meet the challenge of emergence and to achieve the objectives of sustainable development.
Mr. Mputu, on behalf of the UNESCO Regional Director for Central Africa, thanked the Ministry responsible for education for its support for the implementation of UNESCO education projects and programs in Burundi. He also indicated that the priority is to contribute to increasing the availability and quality of educational resources, particularly textbooks, stressing that the scarcity and quality of textbooks undermines the quality of teaching and learning in country numbers.
He further indicated that the assessment of the quality of textbooks in the initial phase began in July 2021 and covered six countries in sub-Saharan Africa namely Burundi, Madagascar, Niger, Senegal, Togo and Benin. The objective is to support the countries in a process of improving the quality of the main educational moment’s textbooks accessible to pupils. To that end, he pointed out that UNESCO will spare no effort to implement everything in a participatory approach involving all the decision-makers involved and partners in the education system in order to ensure access for all children to a quality education.
It should be recalled that Burundi participated in the evaluation of the quality of school textbooks through the “Educational Resources” project financed by the French Development Agency. This evolution concerned the textbooks of cycles 1, 2 and 3 of the fundamental (Mathematics, French) and of the 4th fundamental cycle (Mathematics, French and sciences).