Educating Girls, Building Chad: Why PEFAF Could Shape the Country’s Human Capital Future

Chad’s PEFAF project combines modern schools, STEM and digital facilities, scholarships, counselling and community support to tackle the multiple barriers keeping girls out of secondary education. Its long-term impact will depend on whether policymakers can sustain funding, teachers and facilities while converting better access into stronger skills, employment opportunities and wider economic participation.

Chad's effort to keep more girls in secondary school is entering a decisive phase as the Girls' Education and Women's Literacy Project (PEFAF) approaches its closing stage in 2026. Backed by an $11.26 million grant from the African Development Bank Group's Transition Support Facility and a non-monetary contribution from the Chadian government valued at about $713,000, the programme is attempting something broader than simply adding classrooms: connecting education infrastructure with financial support, safety, digital skills and community participation.

Approved in 2020, PEFAF is upgrading the Amriguébé school complex in N'Djamena, covering the Bilingual Girls' Secondary School and Arabic Girls' Secondary School, while a new girls' secondary school is being developed in Massakory in Hadjer-Lamis province. The investments include science and computer laboratories, libraries, digital equipment, first-aid rooms, accessible toilets, drinking water and solar energy systems.

The significance for Chad lies in whether these facilities can help girls remain in education, acquire stronger skills and ultimately participate more fully in the economy.

Beyond Classrooms: Chad Targets the Barriers Keeping Girls Out

PEFAF recognises a fundamental problem in education policy: constructing schools does not guarantee that vulnerable students can attend them or remain enrolled.

Financial pressures on households, safety concerns, gender-based violence and wider social barriers can all undermine girls' education. The project therefore combines physical infrastructure with planned scholarships and school kits for vulnerable pupils, counselling services and community awareness campaigns.

This integrated approach matters because the causes of school dropout often extend beyond the education system itself. A girl may have access to a modern classroom but still leave school because her family cannot meet education-related expenses or because social pressures make continued attendance difficult.

Community involvement is consequently another part of the strategy. Parents, teachers, traditional leaders and local authorities are being engaged on girls' safety and educational rights, while associations of mothers working as educators are being supported to strengthen their leadership and community role.

For policymakers, this creates an important lesson: improving girls' education requires coordination across education, social protection, gender policy, child protection and community institutions rather than relying on school construction alone.

Science and Digital Learning Could Strengthen Chad's Skills Base

The inclusion of science laboratories, computers and digital learning equipment gives the programme a wider economic dimension.

Chad needs young people equipped with skills that can support productivity and economic diversification. Giving girls greater exposure to science, technology and digital education could widen their future academic and employment opportunities while increasing the pool of skilled women available to the economy.

But infrastructure represents only the first step.

Laboratories require equipment and supplies. Computers need maintenance and eventual replacement. Solar systems require technical servicing. Most importantly, schools need qualified teachers capable of turning new facilities into meaningful learning.

That shifts the policy debate from capital investment toward recurrent expenditure. Chad will eventually have to finance teachers, maintenance, learning materials and technical support after project funding ends.

Without those resources, sophisticated facilities risk becoming underused assets. The long-term return on PEFAF will therefore depend less on what is installed before the programme closes than on how consistently those investments are used afterward.

Government, Donors and Businesses Face a Sustainability Test

For the Chadian government, PEFAF presents both an opportunity and a fiscal responsibility.

Successful implementation could strengthen human capital by helping more girls complete secondary education and acquire scientific, technical and digital skills. Over time, better-educated women can potentially expand the labour pool and contribute to household economic security and wider development.

Development partners also have an important stake in the outcome. PEFAF provides a test of whether combining infrastructure, financial assistance, counselling and community participation produces better results than isolated interventions.

That evidence will matter if the model is expanded.

International financiers will need to look beyond numbers of classrooms, computers or laboratories delivered and examine whether enrolment, attendance, retention, completion and learning outcomes improve. Evidence on scholarship delivery and use of counselling services will also be important.

Private-sector stakeholders could have a supporting role as education becomes increasingly connected with technology and employment. Equipment suppliers, digital-service providers and solar maintenance companies could support school operations, while businesses could eventually contribute through vocational partnerships, internships or skills programmes.

Such opportunities, however, should not be assumed. The existing project information does not establish a significant private-sector implementation role, making this an area for future policy development rather than a confirmed outcome.

The Bigger Question: Can Chad Turn Access Into Lasting Opportunity?

As PEFAF moves toward completion, discussion of a possible second phase in other provinces raises the most important policy question: what should be replicated?

Expansion could extend improved education opportunities to more girls, particularly where geography, poverty and inadequate facilities restrict access. But replication should be based on measurable outcomes from the first phase.

Policymakers and development partners will need reliable evidence on how many vulnerable girls received assistance, whether dropout declined, whether students completed secondary education, whether learning improved and whether investments in science and technology translated into meaningful skills.

Sustainability will be equally important. Schools require predictable budgets for teachers, electricity systems, laboratories, computers, water and sanitation long after development financing ends.

PEFAF's broader significance therefore extends beyond the infrastructure now appearing in N'Djamena and Massakory. It is testing whether Chad can build an education model in which physical access, affordability, safety, community support and modern skills reinforce one another.

If that combination proves sustainable, the programme could provide policymakers and development partners with a stronger basis for extending girls' secondary education elsewhere in the country. If maintenance, staffing, financing or student retention falter, the experience will offer a different but equally important lesson about the limits of infrastructure-led development.

The decisive measure will not be how many facilities PEFAF leaves behind in 2026, but whether more girls can use them to stay in school, gain useful skills and convert education into lasting social and economic opportunity.