Together to ensure that boys and girls have the right to quality education

Reduce the dropout rate in the Atacora department, improve participation in school activities by boys and girls and their families, and promote greater awareness of the importance of the right to education. A project co-financed with the Otto per Mille funds of the Waldensian Church.

The context

Benin ranks 166th out of 191 countries in the Human Development Index (2021). The expected years of schooling for each child is 5,5 years, thus failing to complete the primary cycle of education. Despite several efforts, overall educational provision is still weak in rural areas, particularly in the department of Atacora, where the primary education completion rate was 65,41% in 2022, or a rate of 34,59% of children under 15 years of age who do not attend school (data from the Ministry of Education in Benin 2022). 

This situation is fueled by a lack of awareness of children's rights among the community, the low regard given to the right to education (despite the fact that the Constitution of Benin makes it compulsory) and the inadequacy of child protection mechanisms.

In these areas where poverty is concentrated, access to school is not guaranteed for children from large and poor families, whose priority remains daily survival.

Learning objectives

In order to counteract the high rate of school dropouts, while trying to spread awareness of the importance of the right to education to children and their families, the project aims to reduce the school dropout rate in the department of Atacora. The goal is to improve participation in school activities of boys and girls and their families and promote greater awareness among the population on the importance of the right to education.

 

The activities

Provide students with school kits              
Distribution of school kits to school children to combat school dropout in the beneficiary locations. 300 children from 20 schools will receive a kit consisting of a school bag, a set of school supplies (notebooks, slate, pens, textbooks as well as a torch for evening study).

Providing additional income to families          
300 families will receive a rooster and three hens. The families themselves have indicated the chicken breeding activity as one of those easy to manage, with few infrastructure costs and with a good income margin. To best carry out the action, the involvement of a trainer expert in poultry farming of local species is planned, who will carry out specific training.

Promote the supportive parental role 
In each of the 20 schools, an awareness-raising session will be organized on parental participation in school monitoring at home and at the pupil's school. Participants in this session will be: at least one parent of the 15 beneficiary pupils per school and 2 members of the Parents' Association of the students, as well as the 3 teachers of the 3 classes of the beneficiary pupils. The animator/trainer of the project will remain in contact with both the teachers and the families.

Raising awareness among students about the importance of school

In order to make school-age children understand the importance of school, at the end of each term an in-depth session will be organized in each of the 20 schools, aimed at a total of 50 children per school. During these sessions the theme of the importance of school for a child/boy will be developed and two educational manuals will be used that the project team will take care of drafting and printing, which will then remain available to the school.

Raising awareness among the population on the right to education
To spread the importance of the right to education, radio programs will be conducted by specialists on issues related to children's rights, disseminating some of the key points of the children's code in the Republic of Benin, deliberated and adopted by the National Assembly on January 23, 2015. Radios are a very important information channel, as they are able to reach a good part of the population of the four target municipalities. The radio programs will be disseminated in local languages ​​and broadcast on four local community radios.