PAIRE - Institutional Support Project for Education Reform in Mauritania

The Mauritanian education system is facing major structural challenges, particularly in access to education and quality of teaching.

This is partly due to the lack of textbooks, which are a critical educational resource. They are not only scarce, but also of poor quality and unevenly distributed throughout the country.

To respond to these challenges, the Mauritanian government is implementing the National Education Sector Development Plan (PNDSE III), which proposes quality education for all children, as well as the reforms enshrined in the Education System Orientation Law adopted in 2022.

This is the backdrop behind the creation of the Institutional Support Project for Education Reform (PAIRE), which supports the Ministry of Education in implementing reforms. The PAIRE actions contribute to a sustainable transformation of the education system, by building the institutional capacities and skills of the Ministry of Education teams.

The objective of PAIRE is to support education-sector reform in Mauritania to improve access to and the quality of services for all, by supporting the implementation of reforms initiated in 2022. 

To achieve this, two action priorities have been identified:

• improvement of the quality and availability of textbooks and teaching materials, to better support teaching;
• strengthening of education policy steering and of the management of the Ministry’s resources, both at the central and local levels.

The project also incorporates environmental and educational inclusion issues in a cross-cutting way, in particular by ensuring that the gender dimension is mainstreamed into all actions.

The lack of textbooks in the classroom and insufficient training of teachers have long led the latter to teach without teaching aids.

With the PAIRE project, Expertise France is supporting the National Pedagogical Institute (IPN) in:

• developing the national school textbook strategy adopted in January 2026;
• designing manuals, through training and support for authors;
• establishing a new system for distributing textbooks to classrooms;
• improving the governance and internal supervision of the IPN.

Support is also offered to the Ministry of Education in teachers training to help teachers incorporate the textbooks into their teaching practices.

The PAIRE project is guiding the teams of Mauritanian ministries in implementing the National Education Sector Development Plan (PNDSE III), in particular on issues of multi-year planning of activities and monitoring and evaluation of achievements.

The ministerial teams are provided support in (i) how to manage and use the methods and tools of the programme-budgeting approach, (ii) developing procedural manuals, and (iii) strengthening internal supervision.

In addition, to prepare for the introduction of this local governance tool, PAIRE supports the development of in-house projects in secondary schools, via training, support for pilot schools, and the production of a guidebook.

Finally, the School Management Committees are trained in the participatory management of primary schools and the management of school grants.