ASSOCIATED VOLUNTEER experts

Audit mission in Savalou in Benin for AMJE

Upon request of the AMJE (Association Michel Jestin pour l'Enfance), a Breton association, Louis Jestin (AVe) carried out, in January 2020, an audit mission in an agricultural high school in Benin, located in Savalou ( 250 km north of Cotonou).

	The team managing the school : competence and dynamism		The 4 classrooms module which was funded by AMJE in 2017

 In 2017, the AMJE had financed several constructions on the school : a module of 4 classrooms, a pigsty, a chicken coop, a rabbit farm. The objective of the audit mission was to check whether the equipment was well used, well maintained and to know the needs of the school. 

	The buildings funded by AMJE in 2017 are well used and well maintained		Lack of water supply : a drilling, but defective!

The Savalou Technical Agricultural high school is one of the 10 public agricultural high schools in Benin. It is located in the Collines area. Each year, it welcomes 600 students from the end of the third year of general education until obtaining, in four years, the Diploma of Tropical Agricultural Studies (DEAT), the equivalent of the agricultural baccalauréat in France. The pedagogy of the school is based on theoretical lessons in the classroom and practical lessons on three workshops : plant production (100 ha), animal production (pork, poultry, rabbits, sheep, cattle) and processing of agricultural products.
During three days, the expert visited the school and exchanged a lot with the teachers and the staff of the high school : the Principal, the Censor, the intendant, the farm manager...His audit led to the following conclusions : this school has sufficient resources for operation. The vast majority of the staff are teachers who are paid by the state. The school also has a small operating budget which allows it to finance unforeseen events and specific projects each year. In addition, the expert met people very motivated by their mission and very professional in education and their own specialties. On the other hand, the equipment needs are glaring, including the most basic needs such as water supply, educational equipment and production workshops, in particular the one of plant production,  the main specialty of the school.
The mission report enabled the AMJE president to make choices in terms of support to this high school for 2020 and for the coming years and also the high school Principal to have a file argued by an external auditor to address requests to his hierarchy at the Ministry of Secondary Technical Education and Vocational Training on which he depends.
Louis Jestin - AVe expert.