The School - Curriculum

It is clear that the school’s Management team and teachers take the education of their pupils very seriously. A full curriculum is offered for all ages from 3-20 years old, and pupils are entered for the West Africa Exams Council school examinations.  Graduates leave with a good education but very often there is little chance of being able to find a job.

With this in mind FCRS and the CRS Management team discussed running vocational courses, believing that this would be a step forward to help students by giving them the opportunity to learn skills which could significantly increase their ability to gain employment whether they return home to their own country or stay in Guinea.  It is hoped that by selling what they produce and offering course facilities to the general public, this will also have the knock-on effect of bringing in a small income to the School, sufficient to pay the parents who have offered to teach the courses and also bringing in a small income towards the School’s self-sustainability in the future.  Soap-making was the first of these courses to get off the ground and began in the Spring of 2007 for students who had just graduated.  As funds allow there are plans are to widen this programme for both boys and girls, e.g. hairdressing, engineering courses, furniture-making.

FCRS believes that continual fundraising is vital if the school is to survive for the foreseeable future.  Guinea still hosts around 31,000 refugees with some 9,000 mainly from Sierra Leone and Liberia living in the capital, Conakry.  Repatriation happens only very slowly.  Most of the refugee families have no money to make the move back to their own countries, nor the incentive to return. Therefore, it is vital that as many children as possible can go to school so that they have the opportunity to look to the future.  Most pupils come from poor families and inflation and the cost of food is high.  The School does not like to turn children away who cannot pay their fees, but to allow them in without financial support means that there are insufficient funds to pay staff salaries.