24106 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT NETWORK Guinea: A Steady Growth Path to Achieve Education for All Guinea is one of the few countries world-wide to have sustained over an entire decade the pri- mary school enrollment rate increases necessary to achieve the key Dakar EFA goals without degradation of quality. Gross Enrollment Rates increased almost 10% annually from 1991- 2001, with girls' enrollment increasing at 12% annually each year. Gross primary enrollments increased from 28% to 61% over this ten-year period, in spite of a weak macroeconomic envi- ronment. The Guinea case, then, provides guidance on how resource-poor countries can plan and follow a steady course toward Universal Primary Education through policy change and hard work, even where conditions, on the surface, are not particularly favorable. April 2002 The success of Guinea Quality in expanding access by "muddling through" is Guinea was able to avoid degradations in quality remarkable. Guinea has mastered the art of the "first during this period of expansion, in part by ensuring adequate solution". Rather than waiting for or trying that teachers were key partners in developing school to design the perfect environment, Guinea has a improvement plans. The Ministry since 1994 has well-tested track record in moving ahead quickly as developed a teacher­driven in-service education pro- soon as a reasonable approach has been worked out. gram to give teachers more professional autonomy. On the positive side, this has led to fairly quick action With the help of ministry personnel designated as on a number of fronts, and Guinea has been among facilitators, teams of teachers design projects to the first West African countries to adopt innovative improve teaching and learning and compete for small approaches such as preventive school health, grants to carry them out. The program has been teacher-driven school grants, interactive radio, widely seen as successful and has engaged virtually sample-based assessment of student learning, gender 100 per cent of teachers in many rural areas and equity committees, NGO-managed construction pro- more than 80% of primary school teachers country- grams, and reform of teacher education. On the neg- wide. These teachers have received significant guid- ative side, the quick adoption of merely adequate ance from inspectors and pedagogic advisors over a solutions, has in some areas led to complacency, and sustained period of time, dealing with specific teach- a general reluctance to conduct meaningful program ing and learning issues. On the input side, improve- evaluations. ments have been made in recent years in teacher quality (teachers are now recruited after Grade 13 Access rather than Grade 10; pre-service and in-service edu- cation have been greatly strengthened; solid class- Coverage has been impressive. Guinea focused on the room level in-service support is available) and gross enrollment rate as the key indicator measuring textbook availability (better than 1:1, up from 1:20 success, and achieved one of the world's highest rates five years ago). of GER growth over the decade. However, the focus on gross enrollments masked in part the continued inefficiency of the system, and repetition rates The Drivers of Change reached as high as 28%, before dropping recently to The successful experience in Guinea can be 22%. This reflects in part the lack of places available attributed to four particularly important drivers of for secondary schooling (repetition is highest in change: (i) the personal commitment of key actors, (ii) Grades 5 and 6). Guinea's Primary Completion Rates private sector and NGO support, (iii) consistent donor are still low, but have increased from 16% in 1990 to support, and (iv) a gender-based policy vision. about 32% in 2001. Guinea: Gross Enrollment Ratios (1990-2001) 70 72 68 Boys 66 66 61 62 61 57 Total 55 54 51 51 51 47 50 44 45 45 44 Girls 40 40 37 36 37 32 32 32 29 26 23 20 20 1990/91 1991/92 1992/93 1993/94 1994/95 1995/96 1996/97 1997/98 1998/99 1999/00 2000/01 Closing the Gender Gap: Gross Enrollment Ratios as Percentage of Total Enrollment 69 69 69 67 67 65 64 64 65 61 59 Boys 41 37 39 Girls 34 35 36 31 31 31 32 32 1990/91 1991/92 1992/93 1993/94 1994/95 1995/96 1996/97 1997/98 1998/99 1999/00 2000/01 Personal commitment of key actors. While much been ups and downs in terms of donor coordination, has been said in the international literature about the and some awkwardness in terms of specific instances importance of political support, the real success sto- of donor collaboration where donors were working ries in Guinea can be traced to the personal commit- on different elements of the same activity together (in ment of key actors--for the most part, mid-level civil service teacher education, textbooks, procurement, servants who believe passionately in what they do, school construction, etc.). Of greater concern than and have worked hard to bring about change. It has the occasional poorly managed program is the long- been possible in Guinea to use the profound commit- term impact on the sector when the donors have a ment of individual actors as a starting point from disproportionate role in establishing the sector's which to build a more broad-based reform effort, and agenda. In Guinea, for instance, donors have gener- as the basis for a good deal of long-term planning, ally been unconcerned with urban issues and have which essentially was able to lock in this vision preferred to devote their energies and resources to through a form of "positive inertia" over a long providing support in rural areas. Similarly, the donors period of time (i.e. once things got started, even with have provided strong support for primary education a change in actors, they tended to keep going). but almost no support whatever for secondary or higher education. While each of these decisions, Private sector and NGO support. The private taken separately donor by donor, can be justified, the sector was almost completely absent in education in cumulative effect has been to skew spending patterns Guinea until 1990. Yet by the end of the decade, the and overall sectoral development growth in enrollments of private schools accounted for much of the overall growth in the system. In 1997, the most exceptional year in this regard, pri- A gender-based policy vision mary school enrolments increased by 24,897 new stu- Guinea has been among the few countries to consis- dents, with private school enrollments accounting for tently use the gender equity issue as an organizing 24,010 of these. Guinea has also worked effectively tool for its EFA efforts. With USAID support in the with the NGO community. More than 20 NGOs have early 90s, and then with FAWE (Federation of African been contracted to construct primary school class- Women Educationists) support, Guinea created one of rooms, mobilize communities in support of the school the continent's first gender equity committees (in and are increasingly involved in sectoral innovation 1991) within the Ministry of Education. The purpose of this group was to ensure that factors known from Donor support. The role of the donor community in the literature to affect girls' attendance and participa- Guinea has been disproportionately important as tion would receive close scrutiny in all donor- or gov- compared to other countries in the region. There has ernment-funded programs. This has come to include long been agreement on sector indicators among such factors as: the distance between home and donors and government. However, there have also school, the sanitary facilities available, the extent to Education in Guinea Socio-Economic Indicators: Education Indicators: Population (millions) 7.4 Adult illiteracy rate: Total [Female/Male] 65 Percent below poverty line 40 Primary gross enrollment rate: Total [F/M] 61 [50/72] GNP per capita 450 Primary completion rate: Total [F/M] 28 [16/40] IDA/IBRD IDA Secondary gross enrollment rate: Total [F/M] 15 [8/21] PRSP1 2002 Tertiary gross enrollment rate: Total [F/M] 1 [0/2] HIPC1 2000 Total Education Spending as % of GDP 1.8 which teachers provide a supportive environment for girls, the opportunity cost of schooling, the direct costs Lessons Learned of schooling. The World Bank's lending to the sector Steady growth can be sustained even in difficult has been profoundly influenced by such considera- environments if close attention is made to creating tions. The government's sectoral program also specifi- strong, committed leadership teams at all levels; cally targets the under-representation of women in this can be done in ways that are consistent with parents' associations, within the teaching corps, and at building quality. higher levels of the education system. Sustainable movement towards EFA means that Remaining Challenges reform and support will be required at all levels of education. While it is appropriate to target primary While Guinea is still only about midway on its path education, and rural areas, this cannot be to the toward EFA, it has successfully demonstrated that the exclusion of other areas of legitimate concern. remaining very low enrollment countries can break out of the mold, and that it is in fact possible to turn Donor collaboration is crucial to the EFA context, around decades of failure. However, despite the gains but unless there is joint "basket" financing, it is in gender equity in access, gender disparities across probably best to agree on discrete complementary urban and rural areas persist. The degree of expendi- packages of support rather than trying to coordi- ture bias is much higher in rural areas where expendi- nate on a single activity. ture on boys is 1.9 times that of girls in primary and nearly 4 times in secondary education. Guinea's future The complexity of decision­making processes success will depend in large part on its ability to fur- during periods of intense reform can often be ther build teaching and learning quality, to strengthen more easily managed by adoption of a "first ade- equity, and to ensure that adequate resources are quate solution" approach. available at the school level. This note series is intended to summarize lessons learned and key policy findings on the World Bank's work in education. The views expressed in these notes are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank. For additional copies of Education Notes, please contact the Education Advisory Service by email at eservice@worldbank.org or visit the web site: http://www.worldbank.org/education/ 1 The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative was proposed by the World Bank and IMF and agreed by the international community in 1996, as the first comprehensive approach to reduce the external debt of the world's poorest, most heavily indebted countries. Since 1999, it has created a strong and transparent link between debt relief and poverty reduction by tying nationally-owned, participatory poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs) to the provision of HIPC debt relief and concessional lending.