In the 132 villages which benefited from the $12.9 Million BRIGHT project that started in 2006, there is no doubt that a new dawn is gradually settling in, as a different generation of enlightened girls and boys is growing up there. As soon as 2007, brand new school complexes were standing in the villages; they opened the door to small girls and boys who got the privilege to attend a school in the vicinity of their communities. Their elder brothers and sisters did not get this opportunity, and either had to walk long distances to reach their school in the next villages, or stay home. Most children therefore missed the chance to attend school and feed on the basic knowledge that formal education offers.
Today, all the children in the 132 villages have now got the opportunity to change the course of their lives, while a few years ago, they were just confined in the darkness of illiteracy. BRIGHT, the American Millennium Challenge Corporation funded threshold project has helped with that, providing each of the villages with a school complex consisting of a 3 classrooms bloc, 3 lodgings for teachers, a borehole, and 2 blocs of 3 latrines as well as other accompanying amenities such as incentives to keep children in school, a recognition for performing teachers, and a literacy and numeracy training for mothers.
According to an evaluation conducted by Mathematica, results reached two years after the completion of the school indicate positive performances deviating from standards by 0.4 % in the BRIGHT schools. This means that a child who has been able to score 50% in a different school would find an accommodating environment in the BRIGHT schools which would enable him/her to score 80%. These results are said to be better than the estimated impact in education in developing countries which, on the average is in the range of 0.1% to 0.3%. Together with an unprecedented community enthusiasm for the new school as evidenced by the impressing number of enrolled children: 19.800 in 2009, the results reached have encouraged the stakeholders raise the bar and seek for more for these children’s education.
The project has just set on the second phase called BRIGHT II. The implementing partners wouldn’t give up when things were going so well. Led by Plan Burkina Faso, the consortium which implemented BRIGHT I including Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) and the Tin Tua Association responded to an open bidding by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), for the implementation of the second phase. The consortium has now been awarded a $22.5 Million Grant, which will be of incredible assistance in upgrading the 132 three class schools built under phase one, to 132 schools with a full primary school cycle of six classes by September 2012. This Award is much appreciated by the implementing consortium members, the Government of Burkina Faso and the beneficiary communities.
A nursery school called “Bisongo” will be added to each of 132 schools. Fifteen additional boreholes will be built, and the 20 most performing schools will be equipped with solar energy. Besides,
BRIGHT II aims to reach 90% girls’ promotion rate, 97% attendance for girls, 52% school completion for both girls and boys. All this done, BRIGHT II will certainly brighten up girls’ education the more in Burkina Faso.
By Françoise Kaboré.
