The establishment of Protestant mission schools in southern Chad in the 1920s, followed by Roman Catholic and colonial state establishments in later decades, marked the beginning of Western education in Chad. From the outset, the colonial administration required that all instruction be in French, with the exception of religion classes, which could be taught in local languages. As early as 1925, the state imposed a standard curriculum on all institutions wishing official recognition and government subsidies. The state thus extended its determine to education, even though the majority of Chadian students attended private mission schools before World War II.

At freedom in 1960, the government accomplished a goal of universal primary education, and school attendance was made compulsory until age twelve. Nevertheless, the development of standard curricula was hampered by the limited number of schools, the existence of two- and three-year establishments alongside the standard five- and seven-year collèges and lycées, and the Muslim preference for Quranic education. Even so, by the mid-1960s 17 % of students between the ages of six and eight were in school. This number described a substantial increase over the 9 % attending school in the mid-1950s and the 1.5 % immediately after World War II. Although the academic year in Chad parallels the French schedule, running from October to June, it is not particularly appropriate for a nation where the hottest part of the April and May.

In the late 1980s, the Ministry of Education had administrative responsibility for all formal schooling. Because of years of civil strife, local communities had assumed many of the ministry's functions, including the construction and maintenance of schools, and payment of teachers' salaries. In 2001 Chad had a literacy rate of 69 %. School attendance in the 1996 school year was 680,959 primary and 99,799 secondary students. During this time there were 2,660 primary schools. In the mid-1990s about 3,000 people attended institutions of higher education, including the nation’s one university, the University of Chad.