Chad is fast approaching TV channel for education

After two days of lively and enriching discussions on using school television for educational purposes, Chad today sees itself taking a significant step towards creating a school television and, more broadly, towards enhanced distance learning for quality education for all. 

As part of UNESCO-IBE's support for the implementation of the Projet de Renforcement de l'Education et de l'Alphabétisation au Tchad (PREAT), it is planned to advocate the introduction of school television in Chad, based on a concept note on the use of school television for educational purposes. The concept note is based on comparative experiences in two countries - Morocco and Côte d'Ivoire - gathered during two study missions to appropriate these two countries' experiences in setting up school television.

Officials from the Ministry of National Education and Civic Promotion (MENPC) and representatives from Chadian television, supported by experts from UNESCO-IBE, began work on the concept note and the modalities of advocacy with technical and financial partners for support in setting up the structure needed to move the project forward. 

The challenges are significant, but the speakers expressed Chad's growing need to respond to the imperatives posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and to move the country towards a sustained and adapted use of new technologies in the education system.

"A distance learning project is essential, and we're going to move forward," said Mr. Ali Kore, Director General of Chad's National Curricula Center.

The end of the workshop was crowned by a visit to the imposing new national radio and television building in the heart of N'Djamena, where news directors and technical directors gave the working group an impressive tour of their media's technical facilities and capabilities. While the modern facilities demonstrate the country's technological capacity to support the project to design a school TV station, a significant effort remains to be made in training and recruiting technical staff with the right skills to create and handle content for the audio-visual media.

UNESCO-IBE supports this project as part of the Chad Education and Literacy Strengthening Project (PREAT), financed by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE).