NDJAMENA, Chad

Turkey's state-run aid agency has established a printing house for Chad's Education Ministry to print its own schoolbooks.

Speaking at the facility’s opening, Aboubakar Assidick Tchoroma, Chad's national education and civic promotion minister, thanked the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) for donating a large, fully equipped printing house where all the textbooks needed by students in Chad will be printed.

In addition to Tchoroma, Turkish Ambassador in Chad Kemal Kaygisiz, and TIKA Vice President Rahman Nurdun were at the ceremony.

Some 180,000 books will be published annually thanks to the Istanbul Printing House in Chad, a landlocked country where only one-third of students have textbooks.

Training was also given in Turkey to four Chadian staff members on operating the printing press.

During Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's 2017 visit to Chad, local authorities requested textbooks, and Turkey proposed establishing a printing house instead of sending books, Kaygisiz said.

This project is a sign of the friendship between the two countries, he added.