• Guinea approves new pre-school regulations after two-day national workshop
  

• Key texts define standards, staff roles, and institutional structure for sector
  

• Only 19% of children attend pre-school; infrastructure gaps remain widespread

Guinea has completed a two-day workshop to approve new regulations for its pre-school education sector.

The workshop, held from Wednesday to Thursday at the Kindia Teacher Training College, was organized by the Ministry of Pre-University Education and Literacy through its national directorate of pre-school education. It brought together domestic stakeholders and international partners to establish quality standards and guidelines for a sector that has long lacked clear regulation.

Participants reviewed and approved several key documents. These included a regulation governing the structure and functioning of pre-school institutions, a decree setting out the roles and responsibilities of supervisory staff, and a document defining Guinea’s quality standards for pre-school education. The texts were drafted and revised between Nov. 13 and Nov. 20, 2025.

According to an official statement, the effort aims to strengthen quality assurance in a sub-sector considered essential for child development and national human capital.

The initiative comes as multiple studies show pre-school education remains limited in Guinea. UNICEF reports that only 19 percent of Guinean children attend pre-school.

Across the sub-region, the World Bank says only 28 percent of children are enrolled in an early childhood program, far below the global average of 58 percent for lower-middle-income countries.

Other issues include inadequate infrastructure and significant geographic disparities. The lack of widespread pre-school provision means many children enter primary school unprepared, which increases the risk of dropout or poor performance.

Félicien Houindo Lokossou