The direct beneficiaries of the project are about 400,000 pupils attending one of the 1,034 public school that will be powered with solar PV systems, as well as hundreds of school staff working and living in the buildings that will be provided with PV systems.

Due to budget constraints, not all the schools and health facilities of the country will be provided with PV systems. After PV/battery systems are installed in all public facilities, other facilities may be eqipped with PV systems to the limit of the funds available.

In addition to the direct impact of access to electricity on educational activities, the following examples of indirect benefits were, provided by school authorities

· Access to internet 24hrs to generate some forms required in the schools,

· Photocopying / printing of mock exams papers,

· Establishing computer classes for adults and civil servants

Provision of addition electric capacity to power larger load appliances will be a great incentive to attract teachers to this career, as well as to retain those already working in remote areas

There are about 1500 schools in The Gambia. Many of the schools are already on-grid and connected, but with poor or limited service.

There are two groups of schools in the Gambia: schools with a convention with the Ministry of Education (the so called “convention schools”) and schools without a convention. Convention schools can be either government (or public) or private schools. The project will address the electricity needs of all schools that have a convention with MBSE, with a priority given to the public schools. According to The Gambia Education Ministry (MoBSE), there are 1034 Government-supported and Private schools with a convention as indicated in the table below.

The project covers 1034 “convention” schools on the following educational levels: Lower Basic Education, Upper Basic Education, and Senior Secondary Education.

Lower basic school lasts six years for children aged 7 through 13, and upper basic school lasts three years for students aged 14 through 16. Upon completion of basic schooling, students take entrance exams for three-year senior secondary school programs.

Hereafter, all these levels are referred as schools. On the premises of some schools, they are also e-learning and PSI-PMI facilities.

The project covers the schools only on the following levels: Lower Basic Education, Upper Basic Education, Senior Secondary Education. The TAF mission prepared analytical tables based on statistical data provided by the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MoBSE)[1]. There are more schools than schools sites as MoBSE considers each individual educational level as a school even when more than one level of education is located on the same premises (or site). Therefore, for the project there are 814 school sites.

MoBSE provided the listing of all schools in May 2018 (CW192 Schools List ALL 2018 05 07 FINAL MoBSE TAF.xlsx). The tables presented in this report were prepared by the TAF experts, and content might be different from data presented in the MoBSE / PPARBD – Statistical Yearbook – 2017/2018, April 2018 also available on the Internet (http://www.edugambia.gm/data-area/publications/year-book-2018.html). Statistical data is presented for each level of education.

TAF Survey

From 10-19 April 2018, 3 TAF expert-designed surveys were administered by 9 MHSW staff to 31 health facilities, including the 13 largest health facilities, and by 3 MoBSE staff to 31 schools and to 27 Commercial/Productive Users, utilizing ministry vehicles and drivers. The objectives of the surveys were: 1) to better understand the actual and projected electricity loads at different facilities; 2) to gather information on the patterns of electricity interruptions for grid-connected systems; 3) to identify potential income-generating activities at the facilities and 4) to confirm and more precisely define the information previously gathered under CW161, Energy Sector stocktaking & project identification and formulation in The Gambia, July 2017. However, the survey sample was not statistically representative of the entire stock of schools and health facilities, but contained representatives from each of the facility categories for which PV/battery systems were to be designed and, for grid-connected facilities, provided complementary data to NAWEC’s billing information.

School Loads

The table below lists the main facility sub-types for public basic and secondary education schools considered for this component and their main power requirements in term of equipment and use.

PROVISION OF ELECTRICITY

Based on the pre-feasibility study of The Gambia PV project for schools and health facilities prepared in 2018, the average annual consumption per (primarily/secondary) pupil is estimated at 7.5 kWh.

The sizing of the PV/battery systems is 2 kWp for off-grid schools (56% of schools), and ranges from 4 kWp (20%), 8 kWp and to 12 kWp (less than 1%) for on-grid buildings.

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