The Minister of National Education, Mr. Ibrahim Natatou and the Legal and Strategic Director of the ITB Group, Mr. Chady N.Rached proceeded, yesterday, Friday, April 7, 2023 at the headquarters of the ANPIPS, to the signing of a public-private partnership between the State of Niger and the ITB Group.
This partnership will finance the installation of a latest generation printing press at INDRAP for a total cost of 8 billion 500 million CFA francs. This will soon allow the ratio of 1 book for 4 pupils to change to 1 book for 1 pupil in Niger.
This policy is in line with the government’s policy of making education its niche.
In his words at the end of this signature, the Minister of National Education, Mr. Ibrahim Natatou recalled that ”the Ministry of National Education is an institution which has 111,565 agents and it has more than 4 million pupils and also 49% of children of school age who do not actually go to school”.
The government through its policy of rebirth act 3, announced the Minister has made “education one of the pillars of this policy which is carried out by the President of the Republic of which there is its translation at the level of the Declaration of General policy orchestrated by the head of government”.
The Minister in charge of National Education said that ”Niger has launched since 2021 a policy focused on school infrastructure, and last year we launched 2,331 classrooms only from the national budget and this year we going to go up to 4,000 classrooms. The numbers will only increase over the years.
Thus, he pointed out, “for almost one (1) year we have launched the policy of restrictions on contract teachers who number 70,473 in our education system, and we have proposed a scheme which consists in splitting them and when fleeing and as we are going to evaluate them and to turn them into civil servants”.
The Minister to note that in Niger ”the ratio is one book for 4 pupils and in the very near future we want to bring this ratio to 1 book per pupil”.
Also, he also indicated, ”the major challenges that characterize our education system are now known to everyone, namely the challenges of access, equity, the challenges of the quality of education and governance.
The Legal and Strategic Director of the ITB Group, Mr.Chady N.Rached, for his part, announced that they are the private partners, and a Lebanese group called ITB.
”We have the honor and the privilege of partnering with the Ministry of National Education via INDRAP to install a very advanced printing press to allow the printing of quality educational tools and materials quickly and at very low costs” he said before saying ‘very happy to be partners of the State of Niger’ to whom he addressed his sincere thanks for the trust.
The Director General of the Nigerien Agency for the Promotion of Private Investments and Strategic Projects (ANPIPS), Mr. Insa Noufou, explained that ”it is a public-private partnership project, and it is the partner who will make the investments at 100%, and for that the old buildings of the INDRAP will be completely renovated and there will be new constructions to house this industry”.
“There will be department stores that will receive all the books that will be printed and this project consists of printing over the first 3 years around 2.5 million books and around 5 million notebooks for school children” he let know.
”This project is a very important objective that the Ministry of Education seeks to achieve and today through this project the Ministry wants to go to a 1 book for each child, and that through this industry, Niger will produce his own notebooks with Nigeriens” specified the DG of the ANPIPS.
Note that this ceremony took place in the presence of the Director General of INDRAP and several other guests.