A five-year experiment closes on a high note
The Programme d’Appui à la Stratégie Sectorielle de l’Éducation, better known by its French acronym PASSÉ, slipped quietly across the finish line in November 2025. Launched jointly by the Government of the Republic of Congo and UNESCO with financing from the Global Partnership for Education, the five-year envelope set out to make schools more equitable, more effective and more accountable. The final evaluation, presented in Brazzaville in early December, suggests that the targets were not only met but, in several instances, exceeded.
Equity gains: bricks, water and daily meals
PASSÉ’s first pillar sought to narrow the gap between urban and rural learners. Twenty-five fully equipped pre-school classrooms now dot remote districts; twenty-four primary facilities have been fitted with gender-segregated latrines; and twenty-three wells have returned to service after rehabilitation efforts. For UNESCO’s country representative Fatoumata Barry Marega, the most transformative measure was the roll-out of school canteens and conditional cash transfers. More than 19,000 pupils in eighty-two public schools across four departments now receive a hot, nutritionally balanced lunch that encourages both retention and regular attendance, she told reporters in Brazzaville.
Quality push: teachers trained, books delivered
If access is the front door to learning, quality remains the cornerstone of any credible reform. Over the past five years the programme has funded pedagogical up-skilling for 1,350 volunteer teachers and 154 instructional supervisors, in partnership with the École Normale Supérieure. At the same time 51,000 core textbooks and 250,000 activity workbooks in French and mathematics have been distributed, complementing the 608,000 volumes purchased directly by the Treasury. The combined effort brings the country within striking distance of its declared ambition: one textbook per pupil in the foundational subjects. Ms Marega called the result a ‘statistically significant stride toward parity of learning tools’ and urged partners to sustain the momentum through 2030.
Data-driven governance and curriculum overhaul
Beyond infrastructure and pedagogy, PASSÉ devoted special attention to efficiency. After a five-year hiatus, the Education Management Information System has been fully modernised, producing statistical yearbooks for 2022-2023, 2023-2024 and 2024-2025. Accurate, real-time data now guide the allocation of teachers and the calibration of budgets, officials at the Ministry of Pre-School, Primary and Secondary Education confirmed. In parallel, thirty-five national experts completed an intensive course with UNESCO’s International Bureau of Education, culminating in a newly validated national Curriculum Orientation Framework. The document is expected to serve as the lodestar for subject-specific syllabi under preparation.
Fresh GPE envelopes anchor the next phase
Even before PASSÉ’s closing ceremony, Brazzaville secured a new round of financing under the Global Partnership for Education. Three distinct windows have been approved: a US$15-million multiplier grant backing the World Bank-led TRESOR project; a US$10-million transformation grant funneled through the Programme d’Appui au Renforcement de la Qualité de l’Éducation de Base, co-managed by UNICEF and UNESCO; and a capacity-building facility of US$1.035 billion, likewise entrusted to the two UN agencies. Each stream is aligned with Congo’s recently signed Partnership Compact for Education Transformation, which places learning outcomes squarely at the centre of the policy agenda for the next five years.
Towards SDG-4: optimism tempered by vigilance
Officials in Brazzaville are understandably buoyant. Minister of Primary Education Jean-Luc Mouthou praised ‘a pragmatic alliance that turns pledges into classrooms, statistics into policy and aspirations into measurable literacy gains’. Independent observers also note a shift toward evidence-based decision-making, an area long considered the weak link in the sector. Yet they caution that sustained domestic financing, particularly for teacher salaries, remains a prerequisite if the country is to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4 by 2030. For now, the PASSÉ scorecard offers a snapshot of what coordinated action can deliver: cleaner schools, trained educators and reliable data—foundations upon which the forthcoming GPE-financed projects must now build.