Preschool education, called éducation préscolaire, includes écoles maternelles and jardins d’enfants. It usually serves children aged about 3 to 5 or 6 and is not compulsory. Primary education, also called enseignement primaire or Fondamental 1, lasts six years from CP1 through CM2 and generally begins at about age 6. Lower secondary education, called enseignement moyen or Fondamental 2, lasts four years from 6e through 3e and is provided in collèges or CEGs. Upper secondary education lasts three years in a lycée and may follow general or school-based technical programmes. Technical schooling is included only where it remains part of the formal school system, such as eligible lycée or CET programmes. The transition from primary to lower secondary and from lower secondary to upper secondary is formal, but examination names and procedures are changing during reform. Legacy references use CEPE or CEPET for primary, concours d’entrée en 6e for entry to middle school and BEPC for lower secondary. Current official usage increasingly refers to the BEF examination in 2026. Upper secondary students may take the Baccalauréat de l’Enseignement Secondaire Général or Technique. A baccalaureate can provide the immediate academic pathway toward tertiary education, while a school-based technical programme can lead to a technical or professional diploma. Chad’s formal school network includes public, private and community schools. In the 2020/21 school-year data, public schools represented about 44.5% of recorded provision, community schools about 39.5% and private schools about 15.9%. Primary, middle and other provision exists across all three types, while secondary and upper-secondary provision is mainly public or private. A traditional Quranic school does not automatically count as formal schooling. A renovated bilingual Quranic school counts when it follows a structured curriculum aligned with the official programme and supports reintegration into formal education. Law 16/PR/2006 guarantees education for children from 6 to 16 years regardless of sex, age, regional, social, ethnic or religious origin. In practice, compulsory attendance is weakly enforced. UNICEF country-programme evidence from 2023 reported that 56.8% of primary-school-age children were out of school. Poverty, early marriage or motherhood, long distances, displacement, insecurity, shortages of teachers and inadequate infrastructure restrict attendance. Evidence from Hadjer Lamis and Ouaddaï places secondary access below 30% in those areas. The exact nationwide rules for catchment areas, placement, required documents and seat allocation are not sufficiently established to assume automatic admission to a particular school. The national curriculum is officially bilingual in French and Arabic, and teaching in both official languages is required by policy. The 2026 PRET reform validated francophone and arabophone curricula for preschool, CP1 and CP2. Teaching covers foundational literacy and numeracy, reading, arithmetic and science. Local languages can support early literacy and classroom communication, but they do not replace the official curriculum. Implementation of bilingual teaching varies between schools and regions. Public schools had no student fees in the MENPC 2020/21 table, but families may still pay for notebooks, textbooks, uniforms, shoes, transport, examinations, enrolment-related charges and support for community teachers. Private and community schools charge student fees, and family or parent associations contribute materially to school financing. Preschool is mainly provided by private or community institutions and is not generally tuition-free. UNESCO consultation evidence also indicates that the first and second years of secondary education are not free. Targeted programmes can reduce these costs: current PRET and GPE grants provide about USD 70 per beneficiary per year from 2025 to 2028 for 25,000 vulnerable girls in 318 schools, including eligible enrolment costs, supplies, uniforms and shoes. School support may include textbooks, school kits, teaching guides, teacher training, inspector visits, school scorecards, feeding programmes, canteens, water points, separate latrines, menstrual-hygiene support and community-teacher subsidies. Girls’ retention and transition grants, psychosocial support, life-skills and peace education are used in crisis settings. Schools and programmes also support refugee, returnee, internally displaced and host-community children. Disability-inclusive education exists, but national coverage and entitlements remain unevenly documented. During closures, radio, television and mobile learning have provided distance education. The Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale, du Bilinguisme et de la Promotion Civique, commonly abbreviated as MENBPC, leads school policy nationally. Regional Académies, provincial delegations, inspectors and school directors handle implementation and supervision. Parent and community structures such as APE, AME and PTAs participate in school governance and financing. UNICEF, GPE, UNESCO, WFP, KOICA and nongovernmental organisations support programmes but are not the national school regulator. Learning outcomes remain weak: UNICEF evidence reports that only 22.2% of children reached minimum reading proficiency and 11.5% reached minimum mathematics proficiency at the end of primary school, while PASEC evidence found 77.8% lacking language competency at primary completion.
School in Chad
Formal schooling in Chad covers preschool, six years of primary education, four years of lower secondary education and three years of upper secondary education. Public, private and community schools operate alongside structured bilingual Quranic schools, while traditional Quranic instruction is not automatically part of formal schooling. Education law guarantees education from ages 6 to 16, although poverty, distance, insecurity, displacement and limited school capacity keep many children out of school.
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