Côte d’Ivoire

Background

Education results in Côte d’Ivoire show that many children do not gain foundational skills in primary school. According to a recent education survey, more than half of children at the end of primary school fall below the “sufficient” threshold of reading proficiency in French.¹

In addition to low learning levels, overcrowded classrooms, and ambitious curricula, many students in Côte d’Ivoire face a language barrier. Although over 70 languages are spoken across the country and within classrooms, French is the lingua franca and the official language of instruction. As a result, many children have to learn in a different language from that spoken at home.

Partnership

In November 2017, the Ministry of National Education of Côte d’Ivoire partnered with J-PAL Europe, Pratham, and Transforming Education in Cocoa Communities (TRECC), to adapt and pilot le Programme d’Education Ciblée (PEC), the first TaRL programme ever launched in French. Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) is collecting independent process monitoring data of the pilot to determine the programme’s readiness to be implemented at a larger scale.

TaRL Pilot

From October 2018 to March 2019, PEC classes will be conducted in 50 primary schools in the cocoa-growing regions of Gabiadji and Méagui. Teachers facilitate engaging TaRL activities in French and mathematics, for one and a half hour every day, for children from grades 3, 4 and 5. Government mentors are trained to provide continuous support to teachers.

The PEC pilot in Côte d’Ivoire provides an exciting opportunity to adapt the TaRL educational approach to the francophone African context—and possibly other multilingual contexts—as well as to understand how public-private partnerships can leverage government efforts to create systemic change.