USAID/Guinea: Ambassador's Girl's Scholarship Program Announced in Guinea

DECEMBER 1, 2004

Ambassador's Girl's Scholarship Program Announced in Guinea

USAID/Guinea is beginning implementation of an $850,000 Ambassador's Girls' Scholarship Program, designed to give practical support as well as encouragement to grade school girls in Guinea.

Girl's education received a boost in Guinea this month with the announcement of an $850,000 Ambassador's Girls' Scholarship Program to be implemented during the 2004-2005 school year. A signing ceremony was held on November 19, 2004 at the Ministry of Pre-University and Civic Education in which U.S. Ambassador Jackson McDonald and the Guinean Minister of Education Galéma Guilavogui, along with representatives from USAID, together announced the official launching of the scholarship program.

Guinean schoolgirl at Amril Cabral primary school in Dixin, Conakry.

The program offers much needed support for girls' education in Guinea, where only 41% of young girls successfully complete Grade 6. Dropout rates are particularly high in rural areas of Guinea, where school costs are not always within the budget of poor rural families, and domestic and income-generating chores are often considered higher priority than attending school.

The Ambassador's Girls' Scholarship Program will bring visibility to the issue that girls need not only to enroll in school, but also be given the opportunity to complete the primary cycle.

The program will offer support to young girls by offering at least 6,000 scholarships to girls in Grades 5 and 6. The approximately $100 scholarship package will cover the cost of such items as learning materials, books, notebooks, pens, school uniforms, backpacks and shoes, and will help defray the cost of food and transportation to school for female students.

Young girls in a village outside of Kissidougou, in the Forest Region of Guinea. Photo by Laura Lartigue, USAID.

Many girls in Guinea are expected to do home and farm chores instead of going to school. The USAID program will emphasize the importance of making girls' schooling a high priority.

Complementary activities will include a girls' mentoring program, innovative community projects focused on girls' education, and celebrations of National Girls' Education Day to reach a wider network of girls throughout the country.

The Guinea scholarship program is part of a much broader $200 million African Education Initiative announced by President Bush in 2002. Designed to promote educational opportunities for African children, the initiative works through three programs: by offering teacher training to over 420,000 teachers in Africa, developing 4.5 million textbooks in partnership with Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the U.S., and the Ambassador's Girls' Scholarship Program.

HIV/AIDS and community participation are emphasized within these programs as cross-cutting themes. Guinea has already benefited significantly from the Africa Education Initiative through the training of 23,139 teachers and the design and distribution of 500,000 language arts textbooks to children in Grades 1 and 2.

Young girl in a classroom in Guinea. Photo by Norma Evans, EDC.

A grade school girl in class with a new textbook provided by a USAID-sponsored project. USAID also provides technical support to the Ministry of Education, and regular in-service training for teachers throughout Guinea.

The Ambassador's Girls' Scholarship Program in Guinea will be managed by USAID partner World Education, who will work in collaboration with the Ministry of Pre-University and Civic Education as well as with civil society organizations at the prefecture and school levels to develop locally-relevent criteria for selection of scholarship recipients.

The scholarship fund supports the Guinean Government's Education For All program goal of achieving universal primary education by the year 2015.

Says U.S. Ambassador Jackson McDonald, “We know that the Guinean Government is committed to girls' education, and that they are also open to donors who advance the cause of equity within the national education agenda. One of the best ways currently used to prevent failure in school is to offer quality education, and to favor success by increasing the motivation of students, teachers and parents. In order to do this, we are happy to announce the Ambassador's Girls' Scholarship Program."

Photos by Norma Evans, EDC. Story by Laura Lartigue