Since more than 10 years Belgium supports technical and vocational education in Burundi. We look at the profound changes the sector has undergone during the last few years.

Poorly managed schools

Until recently the “professional education centres” were miles away from formal education and they were poorly managed. The role of teachers and administrative staff was unclear. As a consequence, day-to-day activities at the centres were hampered. As to the level of training, it was low. And for known causes: lack of equipment and support and the poor level of the trainers. So, with such a poor image, it was understandable that only few parents wanted to enrol their kids in such programmes.

Four pilot institutions under ideal conditions

Since 2009 the Support Project to Vocational Education deals with these challenges. The project is implemented by BTC in close collaboration with the Ministry of Education. The project focuses on four institutions in the interior of the Burundi (Kirundo, Muyinga, Mugerama and Karurama). It aims to first provide these four pilot centres with perfect operational conditions and then broaden the experience to all technical and vocations schools in the country. So, the ultimate goal is to improve the credibility of the sector and to offer qualifying training to pupils.

Capacity development at all levels

Management tools have been developed to change overall organisation. This means redefining model organisation charts for technical and vocational schools, elaborating job profiles and reformulating the tasks of staff members.

In a second phase, management guidebooks have been developed especially for this kind of centres. The principals of the institutions and the administrative staff have been trained to use these tools and learn to master financial, administrative and logistics matters. The objective is to improve the quality of management but especially to achieve complete transparency and to boost involvement.

At the same time, teachers have been trained in their own discipline (carpentry, plumbing, sewing…). Indeed, improved school management should come with with improved training. Through this combination efficient technical and vocational centres are built up in each region.

Encouraging results

The results of the strategy followed over the last few years are encouraging. In most cases attendance at the schools has doubled. So, the image of these institutions has definitely improved with the population. The schools are managed better and offer better education thanks to an evaluation grid system that assesses the basic management elements applied. Also the training offer has broadened with new value chains such as the agriculture and food processing chain or the hotel business.

The ministry is enthusiastic with respect to these results and therefore has adopted the project’s management model; now it is applied in all technical and vocations schools and centres. Before the project there was no policy for developing the sector. By October 2013 all technical and vocational schools in Burundi will have these management tools. Also, the vocational schools will adopt the so-called “modular” system, which resulted from an exchange of ideas between the project and the ministry. This innovative system splits up the year in four independent training modules which provides pupils more flexibility in choosing a module of their liking.

Finally, we notice that the project has also influenced other aspects which have helped with relaunching the four vocational training centres: defining profitable value chains that suit the social and economic environment of each centre, construction and rehabilitation works and outfitting.

source: BTC