Inside Chad’s $11.26 Million Push to Keep More Girls in School

Chad is entering the final phase of an $11.26 million education programme designed to keep more girls in school, expand women’s literacy and strengthen the social infrastructure around female education.

The African Development Bank-backed Girls’ Education and Women’s Literacy Project combines school construction with scholarships, learning materials, counselling, literacy training and income-generation support for women.

The programme matters because it addresses a problem that is both social and economic. When girls leave school early, the consequences extend beyond individual educational outcomes to labour-force participation, household income, public health and long-term productivity.

More than school buildings

The project includes the rehabilitation and expansion of the Amriguébé girls’ school complex in N’Djaména and the construction of a new girls’ secondary school in Massakory.

But the intervention extends beyond physical infrastructure. According to the African Development Bank, the programme also provides scholarships and school kits for vulnerable girls, counselling services, science and computer facilities, functional literacy programmes for women and support for income-generating activities.

That wider approach reflects the reality that school attendance is affected by household income, social expectations, access to facilities and the perceived economic value of continuing education.

Why girls’ education is an economic issue

Education policy is often discussed in terms of classrooms, teachers and examination results. In fragile and lower-income economies, however, keeping girls in school also forms part of a broader human-capital strategy.

Greater educational attainment can improve women’s prospects of entering formal employment, starting businesses, earning higher incomes and participating more fully in economic decision-making.

For Chad, these gains are particularly important because demographic pressures and development constraints make the quality of future human capital central to economic resilience.

The literacy dimension

The inclusion of women’s literacy programmes broadens the project beyond school-age beneficiaries.

For women who missed formal schooling earlier in life, functional literacy can improve the ability to manage household finances, participate in commerce, engage with public services and support children’s education.

Income-generation support linked to literacy also recognises that education outcomes can be strengthened when households have greater economic security.

The accountability question

As the project approaches the end of its planned implementation period in 2026, attention should increasingly turn from intended outputs to measured outcomes.

Construction completed, scholarships distributed and training delivered are important indicators, but the longer-term questions are whether enrolment improves, dropout rates decline, literacy gains are sustained and more girls successfully transition through secondary education.

Those outcomes will determine whether the programme becomes a model for broader investment in girls’ education or remains primarily an infrastructure and social-support intervention.

A development investment with long-term stakes

Chad’s programme illustrates why education finance should be understood as development infrastructure.

Schools, scholarships, literacy programmes and support services do not produce immediate returns in the way a road, mine or power plant might. Their economic impact develops over years through a better educated workforce, greater household resilience and stronger participation by women in the economy.

As the project nears completion, the next important story will be whether those long-term gains can be demonstrated in the communities it was designed to serve.

Sources

• African Development Bank: Educating girls, building Chad’s future
• African Development Bank MapAfrica: Girls’ Education and Women’s Literacy Project