Press Release

Primary school education project in Mauritania receives support from OPEC Fund with US$350,000 grant

126/2005 December 20, 2005, Vienna, Austria
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The OPEC Fund for International Development today approved a grant of US$350,000 to help finance an education project in Mauritania spearheaded by the Social Promotion of Culture Foundation (FPSC). The scheme aims to boost primary school enrolment in two impoverished areas: R’Kiz in the southwest and Ouadane in the central part of the country.

Although government has made significant progress in boosting access to primary school education, dropout rates are relatively high. Disincentives for attendance include the dilapidated condition of school infrastructure and overcrowded classrooms, as well as poorly-trained teaching staff. In addition, as there is little social awareness of the importance of education, children are not encouraged by their families to complete school.

Established in 1987, FPSC is a non-profit, international non-governmental organization based in Spain, with the mandate to help eradicate poverty by encouraging education and vocational training, providing support to women and minorities and strengthening human values and culture. Since its inception, FPSC has carried out more than 180 social development projects across the globe.

In cooperation with the Mauritanian Ministry of Education, FPSC will refurbish and expand two primary schools in R’Kiz and ten others in Ouadane, in addition to the construction of one school, with six new classrooms. In Ouadane, capacity-building measures will include the preparation of training modules that cover key teaching methodologies across a wide range of subjects. Each module will be taught in four training sessions that will be offered to 220 primary school teachers. Other activities planned in Ouadane include the provision of awareness-raising lectures for motivating parents to send their children to school and the establishment of adult literacy classes for around 540 participants. In all, at least 1,500 pupils will be able to enjoy attending classes in the modernized, newly-rehabilitated schools, and over 8,000 indirect beneficiaries will also gain from this scheme.

The OPEC Fund has extended two other grants totaling US$350,000 to the FPSC in previous years, co-sponsoring projects that expanded a vocational training school in Paraguay and another that provided Palestinian farmers, especially women, with the skills, training and technical support needed to become self-sufficient.