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This year, Amana is enjoying school even more than usual. The little schoolgirl with the mischievous smile has seen her new classroom in the village of Lavié Péniel take form in just a few months. This was a blessing for this community in the Plateaux region, where children had to walk more than two kilometers and even to cross over a river to get to school.
“Before the construction of this new building, many children had abandoned our school because the classrooms were made of tree trunks, sheet metal and foliage, and provided no shelter from the rain. When it rained, we had to send them home and so the school day was cut short. Today, I am proud to have a school with a solid structure, one worthy of being called ‘school!’ Some students have gradually returned, and the number of students will increase further at the start of the next school year,” said Dabitora Saguintaah-Tiwarka, the principal of the Lavié Péniel Public Primary School.
For Deborah Tchané, the mother of Komla and Amivi, this new building is also a source of joy. Her two children are both very happy with their new school.
“I have noticed that Komla’s teacher is more motivated since the new building has gone up. And I can see the difference in my son’s academic performance,” she noted. Plus, my daughter Amivi told me that the new latrines allow her to change her sanitary napkins discreetly when she is having her period. Before that, she never liked to go to school at such times, for fear of staining her clothes and being laughed at by her classmates.”
Brand-new buildings under the watchful eye of the students’ parents
This new school was built in the village of Lavié Péniel in October 2022, thanks to the World Bank-financed Basic Education Quality and Equity Improvement Project (PAQEEB). With 101 new schools currently under construction under the project, a total of 164 new classrooms have already been completed across the country. Similarly, of the 7,290 bench desks planned for the first two phases of the project’s construction, 2,200 of them have already been delivered.
The new infrastructure developments are closely monitored by Primary School Management Committees (COGEP), which bring together parent representatives and community leaders, all of whom are actively involved in the affairs of the schools.
“I am very proud to have been trained under the auspices of COGEP to monitor the construction of the new classrooms,” said Yayra Amédomé, a 40-year-old COGEP treasurer, whose child attends the Zébévi public primary school in Aného. A total of 495 COGEP members and school principals were trained to monitor school construction work.
Today, to the delight of the communities involved, work is continuing in the rest of the country under Phase 1 of the project, with the construction of 153 new classrooms on 51 sites (45 at the primary level and six at the lower secondary school level).
The same is true for the teacher training programs, which are critical for enhancing and strengthening the quality of teaching. To date, PAQEEB has already trained 7,780 school principals and 7,500 primary school teachers in the use of the new textbooks. “I have seen an improvement in my students’ ability to read. In math as well, the children are stimulated by the new methods we learned during the training program and they are more motivated than before,” noted Atcha Affo, a teacher at the public primary school in Tchamba.
New school uniforms, a source of pride and confidence for girls
Elsewhere, at the Toklo school in southern Togo, a few kilometers from Aného, young Koudaya Sarah is, like many girls in the region, happy to have received a new school uniform for free. “This uniform couldn’t have come at a better time, as my old one didn’t fit anymore and was torn,” the young student explained.
Her mother, Mariama Boureima, president of COGEP, added: “The school uniforms we received for our girls are a financial relief. As mothers, we find that our daughters are more comfortable and self-confident. They are beautiful, clean, and all dressed the same, with no noticeable differences between them. Since then, my daughter has been really dedicated to her studies and it is a pleasure for her to go to class.”
Like Sarah, nearly 80,000 other girls from vulnerable families in Dankpen, Keran, Kpendjal, and Lacs prefectures have received school uniforms for the 2022-2023 school year.
As Anani Agbélé, the Lavié Peniel village chief, explained: “Our village has other development needs, including roads, electricity, et cetera, but the new school is a real treasure! The principal teaches two grades in addition to his work as head of the school, but we hope that the government will assign us additional teachers soon.”
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of The World Bank Group.
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