School Projects in Sub-Saharan Africa: Lessons learned in Guinea, Madagascar and Senegal

A school project is a contractual process through which stakeholders agree to put their educational plans into formal terms in a «school contract that sets forth the school's goals, determines its requirements and the resources needed, and sets the contributions and obligations of the school's partners". Observations in three countries – Guinea, Madagascar and Senegal – show that there is real diversity among such projects, depending on whether they are adopted in public primary schools, community schools or the non-formal education sector. An important aspect of the school project is the approach used, which rallies a community to act on school issues and generates various positive interactions for universalizing access to education and for the quality of instruction. This paper highlights the contrasting nature of the outcomes, depending on the country and context, and reveals more generally that the allocation of funding to communities and to stakeholders in schools under such projects should be accompanied by studies and measures that avoid placing an excessive burden on the pedagogical and educational dimensions.