Ivory Coast has opened a French centre in Abidjan, which in five years will train more than 10,000 teachers.
According to Africanews, in sub-Saharan Africa, teachers from 15 French-speaking countries can learn about education and then bring the information back to classrooms.
“The culmination of a rigorous and demanding process, this innovative center is a timely response to pressing needs in educational engineering, pre-service training, and ongoing capacity building,” announced Ivorian education minister Kandia Camara.
The Professional Development Center (CDP) was inaugurated last week by the Ivorian authorities, hailing it as “a real godsend”.
“Given the very close proximity of our school systems, it seemed important to us to create this CDP”, said Jean-Christophe Deberre, former director of the Mission laïque française.
The project is “another brick in the cooperation between France and the French-speaking countries of Africa,” he said
“We wish to put an end to the training as it might have existed in the past, which consisted of bringing teachers together for a given time, giving them two or three hours of theoretical training and sending them back to their classrooms without the possibility of continuing the training over a longer period of time. Our goal is to offer training that will last over time,” said François Clauzel, director of the CDP.
In order to inspire educators who put their skills to use in the classrooms, several hundred people will attend seminars and conferences for a week.
“I sincerely hope that this Professional Development Center will help us to write beautiful pages in the history of our school together,” said Camara.
