The Ivory Coast Minister of Finance and Economics, M. Konan Bedie, has just officially inaugurated the country's first Trade and Management School. M. Bedie presented the school's first graduates with their diplomas and later visited one of the classroom.

The school, set up under the Ivory Coast's Trade Action Programme, aims to train young men and women in up-to-date shop-keeping and management practices.

Emphasis is placed on practical work at the school, as M. Bedie saw when he was shown a classroom partly fitted-up as a grocery store. Efficient accountancy and costing take an important place in the curriculum.

Some of the school's pupils are school-leavers who will later receive help in setting up their own retail businesses. Other are men and women who have already found positions as management trainees and shop assistants. Of those taking part in the inaugural course, 18 pupils were successful in gaining their diploma.