Prague, Aug 14 (CTK) – The courses for school teachers the Czech SIRIRI NGO annually organises in the Central African Republic have met with a strong acclaim and have seen a rising number of both voluntary foreign instructors and local participants, Terezie Imlaufova, from SIRIRI, told CTK on Monday.
The goal of the programme is to improve the education in one of the world’s poorest countries.
On Tuesday, another group of 12 Czech and French volunteers are leaving for Central Africa to educate about 220 local teachers.
The course have been running since 2015, when 25 local teachers attended them. Last year’s courses had an impact on 12,000 African schoolchildren who started to use new school aids supplied by SIRIRI.
“Last year, our course for Central African teachers met with a huge acclaim. This year, an even higher number of applicants made us raise the number of instructors and the amount of school aids,” Ludmila Bohemova, the programme’s initiator, said.
Nine Czech and three French instructors will bring manuals for teachers, sets of letters for first graders and readers in sango, the local language.
In spite of UNESCO’s recommendation, most local children continue to be taught in French, which is the official language in the Central African Republic. That is why only less than 50 percent of children can read and write after completing the first grade.
Like last year, ten schools will receive 5,000 primers for first graders. Their issuing has been financially supported by the Czech town of Plzen. A part of the instructors to lead the courses in Central Africa come from Plzen.
The voluntary instructors are lectors and students of Czech teaching faculties with a perfect knowledge of French. On Wednesday, they will leave the capital Bangui for Bozoum, a town 500 kilometres far away. As of Saturday, they will start instructing 12 local teachers, who will eventually help them instruct more than 200 other local teachers in the following week.
SIRIRI has been operating for 11 years. It is the only Czech NGO to focus on the development aid in schools, health care and farming in the Central African Republic. Most donations involved come from small Czech donors and from the Foreign Ministry.
This year’s courses will cost about one million crowns, SIRINI director Fabrice Martin said.
