Catch Up Classes Prevent Drop outs from the School in Central Africa Republic

HIGH LIGHTS 

• In the Central African Republic, 39% of students drop out of primary school.
• The GPE-funded remedial education program keeps children in school by providing additional instruction to low-performing students at risk of dropping out to strengthen their reading and math skills.
• The program takes place during school holidays and will benefit 99,000 students in 480 public primary schools by 2025.

Education in Emergencies in CAR Contexts: Achievements and Challenges  

The Central African Republic is one of the toughest places in the world to be a child. Conflict, displacement and instability are undermining efforts for peaceful development, putting children and adolescents at serious risk. Many schools are occupied by armed forces, or inaccessible due to conflict, leaving girls and boys all over the country without access to quality and safe education. In this vastly complex crisis, Education Cannot Wait (ECW) supports partners to provide non-formal learning spaces and improve existing infrastructure to reintegrate children back into formal schools to continue their education.

According to GPE The Central African Republic is one of the poorest and most fragile countries in the world. Affected by multiple political, economic and security crises over the last decade, the government’s capacity to provide education services has weakened in most regions of the country.

A US$31.6 million GPE grant, implemented by the World Bank, is helping the Ministry of Primary, Secondary and Technical Education and Literacy increase access to quality education, with a focus on children living in educationally deprived prefectures.

The poor quality of education in the Central African Republic has led to high dropout rates – 47% for girls and 31% for boys at the primary school level. The government aims to keep that number from growing, in part by identifying low-performing students and providing them with additional literacy and numeracy instruction.

“The challenges are huge. We have to start with access. We know that the school population in the Central African Republic is increasing. But we have structural problems: the infrastructure is not good enough. And we have quality problems: we don’t have enough qualified teachers. The remediation program is important since it helps children who have learning difficulties. We have many examples of kids at risk of dropping out who have been able to improve thanks to the remedial courses, reaching the level of their peers, and getting admitted to a higher grade.”