Means of Instruction, Equipment and Infrastructure

Notwithstanding the considerable progress made in expanding basic education services since the early 1990s, both quality and coverage remain areas of great concern. Schools do not yet provide the kind of learning experience envisaged in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). There is a shortage of school buildings and learning centers, class sizes are often excessive, the number of actual teaching/learning hours is inadequate, new curricula are not yet fully implemented, minimum learning and school performance standards are not in place, and there is a shortage of core and supplementary teaching materials. Teachers are often not qualified and are ill motivated due to low salaries and poor working conditions. The socio-economic and professional status of teachers are poor. There are few non-monetary incentives such as scholarships, training opportunities, career development, and transfer or public recognition for teachers.

Teachers are often unable to provide an active learning environment as the short Textbook Orientation Training alone is insufficient for encouraging teachers to make a shift from the tradition of teacher-centred teaching to child-centred teaching methods. Furthermore, the lack of teaching-learning materials, the absence of teacher support, the large class size, and the double-shift classes, leaving very little time for co-curricular activities, make it even more difficult for such a shift to occur. Against this background it is no surprise that contact time is low, teachers' attendance irregular and accountability of the school towards the community and vice versa unsatisfactory. These all contribute to rather low learning achievement of the children.

There is a substantial number of over-crowded schools and temporary buildings used for primary education. Nationally, a third of 49,000 school rooms are made out of wood and around a quarter have reported building defects. Around 3,300 schools (65% of total) operate a double shift and 108 schools operate a triple shift. This pattern represents a significant barrier to access, but also to incentives to attend school regularly and to receive adequate hours of instruction.

Despite substantial efforts in recent years, rehabilitation of facilities is far from complete. MEYS surveys indicate that 11% of schools are without desks and 6% have no blackboards. The problem is more acute in rural and remote areas, where almost one-fifth of remote schools are without desks. In addition, 15% of schools have no roofs and 24% have no walls, with rural and remote schools most under-served. It is estimated that some 2,470 primary schools do not offer a full grade range, representing 47% of schools. Most of these schools are located in rural or remote areas, and analysis shows that the promotion rates in these incomplete schools is significantly lower than the schools that offer the full grade range.

With donor assistance, the availability of textbooks is improving at the secondary level. For example, since 1996/97 textbooks for Grades VII-IX are being provided on a one book per student per subject basis. This is in contrast to the mid-1990s, when the average was one book per 5-10 students. In the longer-term, this should enhance quality, subject to efforts to ensure that students and teachers use these additional resources effectively (e.g. through teacher orientation programmes). Presently, there is little information available on the impact of increased textbook access. A number of other key inputs for assuring secondary education quality are limited. For example, of the 490 schools only 27 (around 6%) have a science laboratory. Only 200 schools (roughly 40%) have a school library. Clearly, it is difficult to implement an effective science curriculum, including practical work without such facilities. Equally, the absence of a school library undermines opportunities for self-study, which represents a major constraint given the often low instructional hours for students.

The Higher Education Taskforce Report (1998) highlighted the shortage of instructional materials, the variable qualifications and experience of university teaching staff and the very limited spending on key determinants of quality (e.g. textbooks, library materials, curriculum and staff development). Many institutions rely heavily on external assistance for both staff salary supplements and operational budget support. Monitoring of student and teacher attendance is under-developed and as a consequence, assuring instructional time is difficult.