An initiative which aimed at achieving "maximum" enrolment of children in schools has so far enabled some 100,000 children attend school in the 230 three-class satellite schools which have been built in the country since 1995, through help of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
During a visit to one of the schools in Burkina Faso's Gnagna province, some 200 km east of the capital Ouagadougou on Tuesday, Burkina President Blaise Compaore declared that the year 2010 "must be the horizon of freedom and emancipation for those who are still in darkness".
"The school opens you to the rest of the country and to the rest of the world," he said, urging parents to "work at sensitising other parents to send their children at school." Compaore was invited to the school by UNICEF.
The province of Gnagna has one of the lowest schooling rates in Burkina with only 17 percent of children going to school.
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"The deficit we had in education in the past was due to the limitation in material and financial means of the state but with these satellite schools we have the possibility of involving more communities and we can increase the education offer," Compaore said.
The UNICEF satellite schools are contributing to increased girls schooling in the country - which is among the lowest in Africa. In some areas the girl schooling rate is as low as 10 percent while the national rate for girls' school attendance is 36 percent.
In low rate areas mother educator associations have been set up to make sure the girls not only go to school but remain there until they complete the full cycle.
The satellite schools are expected to contribute to raise the current national schooling rate of 43 percent to 60 percent by 2005 and that of girls to 50 percent in the same period.
"The satellite school bring schools nearer to the marginalized communities (have nots) and the schools," Basic Education Minister Mathieu Ouedraogo told IRIN on Tuesday.
"There is a continuity with what he does at home and at the school that makes it possible for the child to complete its primary school in five years instead of six years because they start with their mother tongue and end with French and all the apprenticeship is in French," he said.
The schools are equipped with double closets latrines, drinking water systems and community canteens. The World Food Programme and a the nongovernmental organisation (NGO) Cathwell, provide food for the canteens.
Most of the schools were built in the poorest areas of the country's 14 provinces where the school attendance rate was very low at the request of the populations themselves.
The schools are located at an average distance of four kilometres from the full cycle school. They are bilingual with children starting with their mother tongue and French.
Performance evaluation has shown that in the average success rate in the satellite bilingual school is 85 percent versus 42 percent in regular schools.
Satellite schools are made for those children who are too small to walk three to four kilometres to go to school and also for those who failed to attend the regular school and are aged between 8 to 10. They later transfer to the regular school at form four.
Alarmed by the low schooling rates in the country in 1995, the government called upon UNICEF to coordinate the satellite school project and help in donor mobilisation.
"These schools lay emphasis on the local peculiarities, on nutrition, health, hygiene, household economy and civic rights," UNICEF Representative Joan French said on Tuesday.
"The system is based on the participation of families and aims in the long run at alleviating poverty by preparing a better future for the children," French said. "The communities organised in management committees and associations ensure the smooth running of the school," French added.
The teachers come from the community but are trained so that they can enable the children acquire good socialisation and life skills, UNICEF said.
By 2009 the government hopes to have built 6,000 of these satellite schools throughout the country. The project which has cost so far some US $30 million is funded by the Netherlands, Norway, Canada, France, the US, Spain, Taiwan and a group of NGOs.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
