Burkina Faso’s education reform under the Progressive Popular Revolution (RPP) is built on a dual ambition: pursuing academic and practical excellence through digital curricula and professionalisation, while shaping “patriotic” and “decolonial” citizens through national-language teaching and the rehabilitation of endogenous knowledge.
The central aim is to turn education from a simple vehicle for transmitting knowledge into a strategic pillar serving national sovereignty and endogenous development.
The RPP regime’s structural intervention is first visible in its challenge to the traditional hierarchy built on academic primacy.
A decree adopted in May 2026 deeply reorganises middle and high school education around the principle of “decloisonnement” (breaking down barriers).
The new rules abolish institutional divides that long separated general education, technical education and vocational training, allowing a single school to offer all three tracks while generalising “multipurpose classes” and professional initiation.
The strategic intent is clear: in a context where the formal sector absorbs only a limited share of young people, the goal is to let many of them acquire practical skills alongside academic knowledge, securing livelihoods and anchoring education directly in the national production chain.
Meanwhile, the “NEKRE Pact” from the Mooré word for “awakening” launched in October 2026, elevates this logic to a national contract.
It explicitly requires that “knowledge move closer to production and trades,” stressing that science, digital technologies and research must serve sovereignty.
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