• 42 per cent of our children are in primary school, only 12 per cent are enrolled in secondary school and 1.3 per cent go on to higher education.
• 2002/2003, there was a deficit of 1,197 teachers at the secondary level, and some 12,500 vacancies at the primary level. And in higher education we’ve got one teacher for 45 students

Since independence, the biggest milestone is our ten-year plan for basic education, which was adopted in the year 2000. But partners are hesitating; now they are attaching conditions… Being a teacher, I can’t really criticize those who fund us because they, too, need to find the money. They get it from their countries, from the women and men who work. So, when the IMF and the World Bank are going to finance an operation in a developing country, they are going to do it with money taken from the citizens of developed countries and that’s not always easy. If Europe wants Africa to develop, then there should be a Marshall Plan for the African continent. It’s true that we now have the NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development), and that’s bringing some hope, but it’s a partnership. When, in 1945, the Americans decided to implement the Marshall Plan in Europe, they used all the technical and technological means possible and in less than ten years Europe was back on its feet again. Maybe Europe doesn’t have the means for a Marshall Plan in Africa, or maybe it doesn’t want to…