GNQ - Education

Education

Under the regime of Francisco Macias, education had been significantly neglected with few children receiving any type of education. Under President Obiang, the illiteracy rate dropped from 73 percent to 13 percent and the number of primary school students has risen from 65,000 in 1986 to more than 100,000 in 1994. Education is free and compulsory for children between the ages of 6 and 14.

The Equatorial Guinea government has also partnered with Hess Corporation and The Academy for Educational Development (AED) to establish a $20 million education program through which primary school teachers participate in a training program to teach modern child development techniques. There are now 51 Model Schools, one for every state. It is hoped the active pedagogy in the Model Schools will be a national reform.

In recent years, with change in economic/political climate and government social agendas, several cultural dispersion and literacy organizations are now located in the country, founded chiefly with the financial support of the Spanish government. The country has one university, the Universidad Nacional de Guinea Ecuatorial (UNGE) with a campus in Malabo and a Faculty of Medicine located in Bata on the mainland. In 2009 the university produced the first 110 national doctors. The Bata Medical School is supported principally by the government of Cuba and staffed by Cuban medical educators and physicians, however, it is predicted that Equatorial Guinea will have enough national doctors in the country to be self-sufficient within the next five years.