It takes many of us much to long to understand the importance of education,

and often it is only when we are faced with what it is like in college when you have
to pay thousands of dollars for a semester, or faced with those who dont get the
same grade of education as us or even get on at all that we get a proper perspective.
Unfortunately one of those countries that have helped us be thankful for our
education is Chad. To give a better understanding of what the goals are for
education around the world we look to The Global Education Initiative, which has
three priorities. The first is to put every child in school. The second is to improve the
quality of learning; and the third is to foster global citizenship. These priorities set
by the UN Global Education Initiative are not met by Chad but there are steps being
taken to establish a better education system in the country.
Currently in Chad education is required by law and free at the primary level.
Children are supposed to begin attending at sixe years old and will be finished nine
years later. However, according to Our
Africa only three fourths of students are
enrolled in school. These low rates can be
seen in Image 1, a chart graph showing
student enrollment in Chad. One of the
main issues that families are facing when
they put their child in school is that due to
lack of funds they are asked to help
supplement teacher pay, because it is so
little. This makes education unaffordable
Image 1: A chart providing the scale of
school enrollment in Chad compared to the
whole of Sub-Saharan Africa and other low-
income areas.
Photo retrieved from:
http://www.worldbank.org/projects/search?lang=en&sea
rchTerm=&tab=map&countryshortname_exact=Chad

for many of the native families. Along with paying teachers the country also has little
funding for facilities, materials, and running utilities such as water and electricity.
This is due to the amount of money
being devoted to education by the
country of Chad. Another statistic
from Our Africa shows that only
2.3% of gross national income [is]
given to education while Sub-
Saharan areas in Africa are
providing about 3.6%. In Image 2
you can see that out of all of the
current projects that Chad has
taken on they have only devoted their resources to two educational projects. Due to
the lack of education and shortage on schools many children get drawn into conflict
and turn to army and rebel groups. If proper funding were devoted to education in
this country it would result in a safer environment for children and would promote
growth in the not only the economy but the country as a whole by building futures.
The World Bank Education Statistics also agrees by stating, Education is one of the
most powerful instruments for reducing poverty and inequality and lays a
foundation for sustained economic growth.
The country as a whole has begun to set goals in order to reach meet the
priorities set by the UN Global Education Initiative, because they too understand
how powerful education can be. As of now there are no visits by inspectors, no
Image 1: This is a map of the 10,000 plus
projects happening in Chad from 1947 to
present. The circled two are education projects.
Photo retrieved from:
http://www.worldbank.org/projects/search?lang=en&searchT
erm=&tab=map&countryshortname_exact=Chad


teacher guides distributed, and no tested training for teachers. In efforts to pin point
these issues and fix them for primary
education section, leaders have decided
to focus on quality of buildings and
furniture for classrooms, textbook,
teacher development and management.
In Image 3 you can see the actual size of
Chad versus its proportional size of it
once the number of students is taken into
account. With these steps forward Chad
can make a significant change in its
educational system and enlarge their presence by meeting the priorities set by the
UN Global Education Initiative.
Image 3: Portrays Chads size as being
proportional to the number of children
enrolled in primary education
Photo retrieved from:
http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selecte
d=199
References
Education. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2014, from
http://data.worldbank.org/topic/education

Education & Jobs. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2014, from http://www.our-
africa.org/chad/education-jobs