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afrol News, 16 October - A project for the rehabilitation of basic, non-formal and vocational education in sierra Leone today has achieved external financing. The project is to reconstruct much of the educational infrastructure that totally collapsed during the Sierra Leonean civil war. Ten years of civil war has made Sierra Leone the world's poorest country and the last on the Human Development Index. A result of the war is that only 36 percent of Sierra Leoneans can read and write and only 27 percent are sent to school. Investments in the education system therefore have been seen as a key to the country's further development. The so-called Education III Project in Sierra Leone aims to implement an emergency response in the provision of basic education, vocational skills training and functional literacy needs. The project is part of the government's National Education Master Plan 1997-2006. It also is supposed to help "strengthen national capacity for efficient delivery mechanisms through the rehabilitation, reconstruction or expansion of 460 primary, 100 junior secondary schools, 40 community education centres and vocational training centres as well as the construction of 138 housing units for teachers in needy areas of the country," according to news release. Finally, the project would also "contribute to strengthen the capacity of the Ministry of Education Science and Technology (MEST)." The African Development Fund (ADF) today approved a loan and a grant totalling an amount equivalent to US$ 21.16 million to finance the Sierra Leonean government's Education III Project in Sierra Leone. The project corresponds with the Fund's focus on fighting poverty. According to an ADF release, the education project would "have an important impact on poverty reduction in Sierra Leone." - Indeed, several impoverished parts of Sierra Leone will benefit from school construction or rehabilitation in their communities and a number of 600 schools will benefit directly from the school maintenance programme countrywide, the Fund says. ADF further states that the project was to "promote national reconciliation by restoring normalcy to school life for the children and youth of Sierra Leone whose lives have been severely disrupted and uprooted by warfare."
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