Digital libraries in CAR: Technology working for the Central African Republic’s education system

How does this project contribute to strengthening the Central African education system?

Pascal Villecroix: In CAR, the education system has been badly affected by the events in 2013. Since 2014, with support from UNICEF and the Alliance Française in Bangui, I have been working on setting up a training system for primary school teachers, who lack teaching materials to do their job. This is especially necessary as many of them, particularly in the regions, are parents who take on the role of teacher: they have consequently not been trained in the profession.

Our main objective is to equip them with digital readers – an inexpensive medium, stronger than paper and with a battery autonomy of almost a month – on which the lessons will be loaded. This system will be complemented by equipping the country’s 10 regional educational centres (CPRs) with “koombooks”.

What will these koombooks be used for?

These koombooks, or digital libraries, centralise all the educational content developed for all the subjects of the 6 primary levels.

Each teacher equipped with a reader will be able to come and load it with content in their CPR using Wifi – but without the need to have an Internet connection – and use it to give their lessons. They will also be able to find other cultural content on it, like novels.

What is your assessment of the project at this stage?

Two CPRs were equipped with koombooks in 2017, and the 10 CPRs will be equipped by the end of 2019. In addition, hundreds of readers have been distributed thanks to the equipment provided by Libraries Without Borders and we have started training the staff of the CPRs, from both an educational and technical perspective: it involves training them in how to use the readers, but also in how to use the worksheets and in the teaching methods. The teaching staff includes some 200 people from the CPRs, but also from the Ecole Normale Supérieure of Bangui, the National Institute of Pedagogical Research and Support (INRAP) and the Ministry of Primary, Secondary, Technical Education and Literacy.

It is a flagship initiative for CAR, the only French-speaking African country to implement this type of project nationwide.

Watch a video to find out about the project!