A instrução das
crianças em três países em subsahariana Africa :
O exemplo djibutiano, tchadiano e
burkinabe
Rachel Solomon Tsehaye
PHD, IUFM de Dijon, University of Bourgogne
IREDU, Institute of research of sociology and
economy of education
Pôle AAFE - Esplanade Erasme
Pôle AAFE - Esplanade Erasme
BP
26513
21065 DIJON Cedex / FRANCE
21065 DIJON Cedex / FRANCE
00.33.6.22.95.23.75
Henri Vieille-Grosjean
PHD, Lecturer, University of
Strasbourg
LISEC, Laboratory of research in Sciences of
Education and Communication
Faculté des Sciences de
l’Education
17 rue de l’Université
67000 Strasbourg
/ FRANCE
00.33.3.68.85.05.74
Rachel
Solomon Tsehaye works in the Institute of Research
of Sociology and Economy of Education (IREDU) based in Dijon
(France).
PHD in Sciences of Education, her research focused on the fields of sociology,
anthropology and ethnography and involved long term surveys in
the geographic frame of Africa. The social scientist
first undertook a study of early childhood education in West
Africa. Then she spent a couple of years in East Africa, where she
explored the universe of daily life, studying the motivations of schooling
choice between oriental education (madrasa, Koranic schools), occidental
education (French & public schools) and familial education.
Henri Vieille-Grosjean works in the Laboratory
of research in Sciences of Education and Communication (LISEC), in Strasbourg. In his
research career, he focused on two main areas which question the learning
process in its relation to the identity of both individuals and groups in two
different contexts of involvement. The first context refers to the normative
area, occupied by a form of teaching whose pedagogical conceits crumble when meeting
mystagogical artefacts. The second more informal context, draws attention to
the educative and formative experiences of daily life, such as, the street
school in Africa, where the anthropologist
conducted research on street children.
Educational
provision and schooling choices in three sub-Saharan contexts
(Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti)
L’offre scolaire et les choix
éducatifs interrogés dans trois contextes d’Afrique sub-saharienne (BF…)
Abstract
This article deals with the
various schooling of
three francophone African countries. This article presents the resultants of
three field surveys, during which ethnographic and participant observations,
but also over 150 in
depth interviews were led. After having described the educational provision in
the three countries concerned, the article shed some light on the
representations of school for parents of pupils. A specific focus is made on
the schooling model corresponding to each school. That’s how was measured the
leeway of parents face to the schooling choice which is imposed, face to a
plural educational provision which herald historic connations and hierarchical
organisation.
Key Words: Educational sociology – primary
education- public education- religious education– Choice of schooling.
Escolarização
na África subsaariana :
Exemplo djibutiano, tchadiano e
burkinabe
Resumo
Este artigo apresenta e discute resultados de pesquisas antropológicas, em longo prazo e tratando da instrução em três países de África subsaariana; sendo o resultado de três pesquisas de campo, com observações participantes e 150 entrevistas. Tendo descrito a oferta educacional nos três países em questão, os autores sugerem a partir da analise de posturas parentais, frente à educação formal e não formal, questionando a representação da escola nestes três países. Uma atenção particular foi dada ao modelo escolar de cada um destes três contextos nacionais. Assim pode ser avaliada a margem de liberdade dos pais, na escolha (demanda) educacional efetiva, ou seja, diante da oferta plural, se bem que marcada pela História e pela hierarquia social dos respectivos contextos.
Palavras chaves: antropologia da educação; ensino primário; ensino público / religioso; oferta / demanda de escolarização.
INTRODUCTION
The following research
focuses on some of the aspects of the schooling and human resources mobilized
in education in Sub Saharan Africa. This analysis starts by considering the
similarities that commonly identify the African educational system with its western backgrounds, both bogged
down and self-legitimized by history (d'Almeida Topor, 2010). This affirmation warrants
the examination of the current educational provisions of three countries: Burkina Faso, Djibouti
and Chad,
considering the various aspects of parent opinions, guidance and choice
behaviours. The goal of this approach is
to shed some light on the expectation of adults
regarding school and
to clarify their position and the decision to remove themselves from what would
be considered a dependency to a singular and exogenous educational model. This
reasoning, supported by the outcome of several long-range surveys and
interviews held with teachers, headmasters and parents of children attending
different types of schools, allows to analyse the positions of the families
towards schooling choices and finally to compare the positions between the
professionals in the education system and the parents.
The initial statement
triggers a fundamental question: Can a francophone educational system be spoken of in Africa? This overall identification seems at first a bit excessive
and ignorant of the complexity of a whole, whose
elements would be better defined by congruence and similarities than by
differences. However, this uniqueness seems to exist on the one hand due
to the sharing of a common history, imposed by colonial domination for 200
years. On the other hand, this common part is due to the very setup of the
school system by the colonials, the system keeps on displaying the original
intentions and the model it instituted. As Claude
Durand-Prinborgne mentions in his analysis on this topic: “the independence of
old possessions didn’t lead to a total breach of the previous rule of the
colonial might, that were introduced in the principles” (Durand-Prinborgne,
2001, p.71). Indeed, a quick flashback on the purposes of French colonialism,
in fact shows that these principles remain evident in the context of the school
system in Africa which continues its
historical course (Belloncle, 1984 et Cappelle, 1990).
1. A school - prisoner of its history?
While serving the colonial
establishment, only a small percentage of the local population was concerned
with formal education. Initially designed (either voluntarily or by force)
solely for the sons of chiefs, school gave priority to local aristocracy; this
elitist process was essential in order to maintain the occidental domination
(Magrin, 2001). The educational model thus constructed led to the establishment
of similar political, economical and social organization in countries where the
system was introduced. These practices were inspired by liberalism doxa and a
ethnocentric vision of democracy. After the colonizers followed the leaders
chosen by occidentals for their readiness to serve and safeguard their
interests. Nowadays, school in Africa is often
described as “stuck” to areas of reproduction; it continues to serve a minority
of teachable ages and it is widely pursuing the teaching and enforcement of the
occidental model of economical and human development. Indeed, more focused on
survival than innovation, the educational system remains fused to the basics
borrowed from the North, which imposed a large number of methods, contents and
references (Nyamba, 2005).
Furthermore, it seems that African
school, to this day, has not been successful in adjusting its organizational
framework and its philosophy to local culture. In hopes of redressing these non
equalitarian situations received as inheritance (Carpentier, 2003), there have
been a few attempts to overhaul the whole system by redefining the curriculum
(in South Africa
for instance). Indeed, if sometimes, the local climate is taken into account,
modifying the school schedule to better suit the students (that’s to say,
extended hours in the afternoon), the lack of accommodating facilities requires
the educational institutions to work in a twin-spool method (two cohorts which
alternately share a classroom). This complicates the teacher’s
responsibilities, making the tasks more repetitive, but also negatively
affecting the children who must “gulp the curriculum” in less time.
Moreover, the teaching times have not been updated to the traditional festive
or religious calendar.[1]
Another ambiguity is that the textbooks are written by Africans who went to
French schools and universities and these sometimes see only minor changes -
for instance: typical first names, from François to Yacouba and from Céline to
Aminata. Besides, due to linguistic prevalence, textbooks designed for West
Africa are also bound for East Africa.
At last, while under the teacher’s
iron rule, the French language, which teaching process still remains, has
become a political tool which enables the integration of codes and ways of
thinking that were first taught under duress. Its reassessment, when it does
occur, is based not on its teaching as a foreign language[2]
but on its use as a language of instruction, which “doesn’t play any different
of role than the one it played in the colonial period” (Lê Than Khoï, 1986, p.238).
Thus, from students’ side, the
school’s success relies largely on their learning ability and on the level of
language skilfulness. As for teachers, they can experience some difficulties in
being fluent in French scholar jargon, whose use is universalistic and
decontextualized, with regards to the specifying shapes
used in specific places of daily life. That’s how the results can belie
the expectations: the French instruction language, preventing the school rates
from expanding is going to increase the educational wastage. Associated with a
dramatic economical situation, stuck between debt repayment and credit
multiplication development, the quantitative extension of non-open plan schools
which requires substantial financial means, comes close to being impossible.
This observation refers to the paradox of educational situation in Africa: school is shaping up to have the mission and the
ambition of being aimed towards the widest audience possible, whereas in
reality it ensures the education of a minority (Vieille-Grosjean, 2010).
Therefore, we focus on the starting
postulate, which involves the historical heaviness of the educational system
settled in to satisfy requirements and to provide support to domination and
colonization strategies. This involves questioning the shapes that can take the
prevalence of this heaviness on plural (different) everyday lives so as their
geographic and cultural specificities, with regard to the educational
intentions and schooling expectations in the three countries mentioned and
studied.
2. Geographical frame and opportunity
This enquiry, constructed from a
sociological comprehensive approach, is based on the information collected
during three cooperation assignments that were completed in Africa, from West
Africa (9 months in Burkina Faso) to Central and East Africa (4 years in Chad,
2 years in Djibouti) between November 2003 and April 2008. In
addition to the geographical coverage that they represent, these three
countries use the French language as the privileged media of systemic
education. A cross perspective on the schooling contexts can each vouch
and support a critical approach of this practice acquired from colonization
times that remains. Without using heuristics methods to highlight other
territories and other contexts, it seems interesting to bring out a comparison
between civilizational and historical aspects (Islam implementation, slavery,
experience of colonization, trusteeship, independence). These have similarities
(vernacular languages, ethnic groups, cultural backgrounds, political
management) that display a possible set of the educational figures, resulting
in an anachronism regarding the systemic education of these three countries.
On the other hand, if Burkina Faso
enjoys great popularity amongst French sociological scientists (for instance,
Compaoré 2003, Pilon et Wayack 2003, André G. 2007, Sawadogo E. 2008), Chad and
Djibouti are benefited less from such an outreach. The political instabilities
associated with insecure situations for Chad
and geographical isolation / remoteness for Djibouti, are continuing this
unawareness of the peoples, the social, familial and educational structures of
these countries. In addition to these geo-historical benchmarks, others can be
added that result from the implementation of the main private partner of the
State in education, which is the religious: if in Burkina
Faso, the denominational movement (Christian and Muslim)
is well-balanced, Chad
remains to this under a major Christian influence (65%), whereas Islam rules Djibouti
(97%). At least, the status of the Arab language as an official language that
cohabits with the French language in Djibouti
and in Chad,
and its more marginal place in Burkina, makes the comparison between the
expectations emanating from the educational provision of these countries more
interesting. These are the similarities and particularities on which this
research was based and constructed.
3. Theorical framework: perspectives and distances
Indeed, an examination started from
these constitutive elements and along with it, a research orientated approach
set in. This method was first supported by field observations and informal
interviews, conducted as a first explorative approach. Associated with the
in-depth interviews, the information collected demonstrated a double sided
dilemma, between the professionals in the education system and the parents.
The first side is clear when
exploring the measure of the expected partnership between the two
parties. In the three countries, teachers count on a minimum of ties with
parents, considering that globally there is a trend of parents keeping from
daily activities and even failing in their responsibilities given that they
refuse to take an interest in the education of their children, once they are
sent to school (a process analyzed as “delegation” by Jean Kellehals and Cléopâtre
Montandon and that Daniel Thin detailed as an authority delegation, feeling
illegitimate and trusting teachers). The issue of our research is on the one
hand centered on the families’ positions, both concerning their willingness, or
rather lack, to send their children to school and their expectations from the
instruction received. On the other hand, it aims to provide a comparison with
the professionals in the educative system.
The other side of this awkward
position becomes obvious when looking at speeches hold in a first explorative
research, positions of parents towards school and the interpretations of it
made by teachers. Most of the parental positions are leaning towards
considering school as a royal way to integrate, a unique access to get a job.
However, a small percentage reject school refusing to register their
child(ren). This is the case in some regions of Chad, where they may also refuse to
cooperate with teachers. Over commitment or denial - none of these positions
fit with the ones usually described by teachers as silence, absence or
uncommitment. As a first explanation, we refer to the analysis towards
linguistic codes, hidden curriculum, environment and stereotypes as
determinants of the positions and attitudes (Labov, 1972, Perrenoud, 1993,
Duru-Bellat et Van Zanten, 2006). Parents, as a result of lacking of being
familiar with the codes and contents of this tag-along style type of school,
stay away from it. This is caused by a perceived inferiority and inability and
not because of a disinterest in their children’s schooling. The financial
effort that in its majority comes under the familial budget, proves their
desire to send their children to school. Others, which are a minority, are very
informed of what might happen to their children after being introduced to the
school-orbit and don’t want to resign themselves. That is the reason why they
oppose a refusal whose reasons go beyond of a simple abdication of parental
responsibility. Moreover, unlike child in Occident, the status of the African
child, at least in the three countries mentioned, refers more to the one of
inheritance than the one of heir.
Academic achievement, embodied in
the receiving of diplomas becomes essential to the improvement of an economical
situation, even for the transformation of a familial destiny to arrive. Thus,
school is a placement, submitted to yield, efficiency and performance, which
are represented by a professional activity. This return on investment can
reimburse the financial and sometimes human sacrifice endured by the family,
since some of the sisters and brothers were deprived
of it.
4. Research questions
This first explorative approach
carried out in the different places mentioned above, enables the rise of
parents’ and teachers’ positions towards school, the way it operates and the
means involved in it. Should it be commitment, refusal or protest, these
positions never seem to come out of indifference. That’s how we can read the
existing distance between the different positions and the interpretations which
result. A tension lies between what is announced as having to be said, done and
learnt by, in and for school and what families are less and less able to
control over the years, that’s to say the double disparity (unsuitability)
between, on the one hand, the transmission of informative messages and values,
and on the other hand, the progressive gap that belies the expecting return on investment. This double distance doesn’t take anything away
from the fact that, in most cases, the family is involved in the education of
children, even if it is in financial difficulties or if the children face
learning difficulties. However, if the commitment is not linked to the social,
cultural and economical contexts, it seems to be more related to the existence
of a possibility to choose a schooling mode. Thus, we can assume that the cases
of school refusal could be explained as being owed to the absence of other
alternatives, such as the possibility to entrust children to the care of
another school than the State’s one. The highlight of these possible choices
when they exist, should allow a clarifying approach of the parental commitment
investment, and may could even explain their reasons and their issues.
5. Methodological aspects
First of all, the information
collected rest upon 150 in
depth and semi-directive interviews proportionally divided up among the three
countries. They were conducted with a great variety of actors in order to cover
all partners involved in education, which are parents (35 interviews), headmasters
(15), teachers of public (27), Koranic (16), Madrasa (19), catholic (8),
protestant (12) schools as well as young people who
have left school without any qualification (30). The numbers of the interviews
depends on the percentage represented by each type of education mentioned in
each geographical context. Then,
the qualitative inquiry was completed by analysis of the professional contexts
attended (and above-mentioned) : observation of different sorts of schooling,
writing logbooks and ethnographical narratives. Despite the refusals due to the
confusion of our research with a journalistic survey or even an espionage
attempt, 150 interviews have been recorded.
For parents, the shortlisted
criterion were to have one child minimum in one of the four schools mentioned,
for teachers, to be teaching in one of them too. The size of our sample is not
defined according to its population’s representativity but according to the
number of different situations it was possible to meet. The public was mainly
polled but not exclusively in “urban” areas. We insist on re-contextualizing
this word: 87% of the Djiboutian population live in cities. In Burkina Faso and Chad, even if in 2008, respectively
only 20% and 28% of the population was considered urban (Sherbrooke University
2008), this choice wasn’t made officially; all the people interviewed know both
areas, often moving along from one to another. In Burkina
Faso, the interviews were led in Ouagadougou (3 aeras), in Koudougou (2 aeras)
and in Bobo-dioulasso (2 aeras). In Chad,
our survey was conducted in N’Djaména (5 aeras), Sahr (3 aeras), Abeché (2
aeras), Moundou, (2 aeras); In Djibouti
in uptown as well as inner city and suburbs. Thus,
in the three countries, teachers are for example sent to earn their spurs in
the countryside and get to know material difficulties of a more “hostile” land.[3]
Furthermore, the city dwellers of Ouagadougou
and N’Djamena, as a social communitarian geographic construction, can be
compared to Parisian, which population is mainly composed of people from the
provinces who became metropolitan. The phenomenon is equal in the Djiboutian
capital where nomads and sedentary population, state agents and soldiers are
living side by side, and where people often live from an economy based on
informal trade, even on “resourcefulness” (Denis,
1989 et Piguet, 1998). Moreover, the inquiries cover the entire
socio-economical background, with a predominance of the local middle class,
often former countryfolk, who, owing to their settlement in the capital,
schooling and sometimes school success, experience an upward mobility. In other
families, one parent (in most cases the father) lives far away from house,
because of a job in a capital or even in a foreign (neighbour) country.
6. Information collected
The information collected from
interviews and observations led in the three contexts will be reported. We chose
to focus the presentation of the results on one axis which underlines the tie
between opinions of actors facing the same conditions, in a relation to an
education provision whose characteristics promote or show a slowdown in the
investments.
6.1. Description of the school provision
First of all, the educational
provision, its various aspects and recommendations, ought to be presented. Our
first observations drove us to determine various school offer contexts:
koranic, madrasa, public and private schools. We’ll remember the five main
offers, which are common to the three countries considered.
In a reverse chronological order, the first sort of educational
formal provision refers to protestant schools. This school registers pupils
cohorts that are less numerous than in catholic schools (Mbaïosso, 1990,
p.111), but its increasing influence enjoys a bidirectional strategy: expansion
of educational partnerships with State (Chad)
and gathering of pupils and parents around an educative project (Chad, Burkina Faso). It symbolizes
thereby the recognition of the awareness of a belonging to the community owing
to schooling process. We’re here coming close to the model studies by Max Weber
(Weber, 1989). Indeed, the protestant schools, referenced as school districts,
show the emergence of a new community, organized by the same churchgoing. Thus,
parents’ choice is to be done between dependency to a schooling system that
isn’t under the population’s control and the membership to a community that involves
them in the stake and position which goes beyond the educative scope.
The catholic school, second sort of
educational formal provision, benefited from the historical course (missionary
inheritance). Imported in Africa at the down of colonization, catholic schools
legitimized and spread their presence over the continent, making the accommodation capacities grow, where
state structures failed, thus answering to the needs of primary school
instruction and at last, increasing schooling rates. Officially, this school
enables “the parents to participate to the financial support of Education” (UNESCO,
2006). At the same time, catholic schools strengthen their settlement,
providing summer or evening remedial classes, now taken over by volunteers’
associations foreign NGOs. In the different countries where they were
introduced, private catholic schools accommodate 7 to 8 millions of pupils that
are not from catholic religion (Dubois & Soumille, 2004). In Djibouti,
the great majority of pupils are Muslims and the schooling request surpasses
the accommodation capacities. The popularity of these schools refers to the
numbers (of pupils) involved, above the ones of protestant schools but below as
regards to each classroom, compared to state schools, which constitutes a
teaching quality guarantee. In the aftermath of the independencies, some States
nationalized schools, for instance Burkina Faso in 1969. Others
annexed them, in every cases, they were integrated under conditions
(pluridenomination absence of religious preference etc.) to the formal official
educative system (Lanoue, 2004).
Two other educational
types belong to non formal education: koranic schools and madrasas (or
medersa). In the three countries, koranic basic education is mostly delivered
outside permanent (durable) structures and limits its mission to the mimetic
learning of the koranic verses, or even to babysitting services. This school
attendance stems from an aim of preservation of one religious capital and
thereby of an acquisition of a social acknowledgment. Children are sent in the
name of a parental belief and of respect for tradition. The schedules bring the
Koranic School to complement the formal
education, public or private.
Contrary to the Koranic School, madrasa benefits from a pedagogical
respectability. Teaching is done on the model of formal education, without any
difference in contents (except in drawing) ; they’re not restricted to the
religious instruction and the teaching language is Arabic. The inquiry results
show the importance of religious belonging and of the language spoken in the
family in the schooling choice. Madrasa are more positively judged than koranic
schools, for they’re said to be “more organized and structured”. According to
the madrasa headmasters met in Djibouti and Chad (some of them were even former
public pupils), they record an increasing demand for schooling, limited to a
communication problem, which is the low expansion of Arabic schooling language
in the administration field. If they represent a guarantee (pledge of)
professionalism, they don’t benefit from a popularity equal to the one of
Christian schools, since their students do not have any other choices than
learning in Arabic, apart from the exile in Mideastern countries (as Yemen,
Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Qatar).
The last offer is the
official school which contributes (with private school previously mentioned) to
model the formal education. Its structures host children from 6 to 16 years
old, for whom schooling, guaranteed by State, is free and compulsory, except
for children that attend madrasas or nomad schools, who are exempted from going
(UNESCO, 2006). Public school responds to a master duty coming from the State, but
faces a lack of accommodations possibilities. This being so, this lack
requiring a “twin spool” enables the pupils to attend several schools: the most
frequent double schooling is the attendance of official and Koranic school in
most countries. However, others double schooling were noticed such as
protestant and official in Chad
and more surprisingly, in Djibouti,
catholic and Koranic. Lastly, the attendance of state schools, in every speech,
proceeds, less from a voluntary act than from imitation process” which is
spread throughout the three countries: “children of neighbours are going to
school, you’re going too”.
6.2 Schools and actors: similar everyday lives
First statement, living
conditions are the same for all the professionals interviewed: many African
countries, facing a constant growth of the number of pupils and declining
working conditions, lack teachers. In all the speeches of the teachers
interviewed in the three countries, recurrences on people’s dissatisfaction
concerning the heavy workload appear: “work makes you bitter, less and less
teachers feel a vocation: teachers join public service out of necessity,
teaching as a marriage of convenience, to avoid unemployment, other sectors
being little developed or too saturated to offer any possibility.” (Teacher 7, Burkina Faso,
2007). Furthermore, because of the lack of prospects, there are overqualified
teachers in primary teaching, holding a master degree in a foreign language for
instance and hired in a period of time (2001) when the BEPC was enough to be
recruited. “At any occasion, teachers say they are ready to yield to
temptation.” (Teacher 7, Chad,
2005). Another expression of dissatisfaction is the reference to people’s lack
of knowledge and regard for their job. According to collective imagination in
these three countries, public administration echoes lack of activity and lazy
attitude. Thus, teachers crave for a better recognition of their commitment, or
the possibility to have a less “social” job, “in an office, in front of a
computer.” Eventually, thwarted by teaching conditions always harder, they
sometimes resent their job for “having a part in the reduction of [their]
knowledge” (Teacher 2, Djibouti,
2006). Their position can thus turn to be synonymous with social, economical
and intellectual regression.
Teachers also mention
tension between the responsibility to get children acquainted with that unknown
environment which is school and their report of the lack of meaning of such a
task for “lost children who do not know what is the use of it or where it is
going to lead them to.” (Teacher 3, Burkina Faso, 2007). Other tension,
the difficulty to feel alone when dealing with illiterate parents “who make do
with the basic essentials, sending them to school” and won’t follow their
progress at home as teachers wish. Lastly, class preparations and lack of
gratitude, as well from superiors as from parents, are other difficulties
mentioned in the enquiry which help increase the lack of teachers in Africa.
6.3 Parents’ choice
So most children going
to school actually attend public school, though this is not parents’ first
choice. Public school is indeed a compulsory road every child has to take. Its
image is tightly bound to administrations. Thus, as said a person interviewed
in Burkina Faso,
“people think school is barely good enough to relieve”. Public opinion will
hardly give up the idea inherited from colonization, and suited to the context
of employment, that public function is the one and only way to social success.
This high opinion on public school grants it the power of social ascent through
work and tends to strengthen the pressure put on the child as regards to its
academic success.
The widely spread
phenomenon of double schooling (Djibouti and Chad) mentioned above can also be
explained by parents’ wish of a diversified education, even a diversified
schooling, in order to increase their children’s chances of academic success
and, above all, professional success. The differences between schools which are
made by parents are linked to language, religion and values taught. Religious
education can thus be preferred to the damage caused by laic school, that’s to
say to parents who see the European domination in the hierarchy of languages
(which disavow their mother tongue) and the laic curriculum –which presents
itself universal- as a promotion to renounce to faith that generates negative behaviours[4].
On a global scale, in the three
countries, parents will chose between madrasa and Christian school, trying to
find a correspondence with traditional codes and knowledge, as well as trying
to pass on local habits. Learning Muslim rites in Djibouti
is predominant; the distribution is more balanced in Chad
and Burkina Faso
where the Muslim population is not more numerous. The choice can also be due to
a conflicting link focused on teaching languages (French and Arabic). Schooling
in one language or another may be considered by the child as a punishment since
it is imposed to them and takes them away from the other alternative.
Eventually, if the main reason is religion, upper classes will turn to a
Koranic master at home, which is the case for 71% of the pupils interviewed in
private schools in Djibouti.
In the case of single
schooling, it is the outcome (whether success or failure) that will determine
schooling in madrasa or not. Thus, this is a choice made by default, since
madrasa offers much fewer professional prospects than public school.
Administrative selection by age in public school reinforces even more that
weakness and contributes to run madrasa down (it then looks like a “spare
school”). A Djiboutian teacher tells that his parents had chosen madrasa for
their boys because “they were too old to attend public school.” Furthermore,
madrasa is a solution as a last resort against, for instance,
unemployment. Thus, researches have
shown that giving up “French” school is generally not due to obedience to
religious rules but to financial reasons (Solomon Tsehaye, 2014). In Chad, only a minority of parents
can afford their children’s Christian school fees (Vieille-Grosjean, 2010). Speeches
in favour of madrasa contribute to the effort to minimize school failure (Djibouti) or to hide public school rejection (Burkina Faso, Chad). Public school is the favorite
place where “pupils are well attended to and supervised” and madrasa is the
place for the “outcasts”. Let us note that those choices rest, first of all, on
financial means. Other situations have developed in the past years, as regards
to exodus and migrations: some families, emigrated (Ethiopian in Djibouti)
cannot make any choice at all.
Thus, the only choice
seems to lie between public and private school. More frequent speeches are
those which oppose or, at least, distinguish public and private schools.
Material conditions, pupils distribution in classes (according to the level)
and the number of pupils are points of differentiation that parents will take
into account[5].
School fees are also frequently mentioned. Parents regret not being able to offer
their children what is seen as “best” (meaning private school). Because of
economical, material hardship in the public educative sphere, primary school
teachers (in Burkina as well as in Chad
or Djibouti)
mainly choose to send their own children to private schools, though feeling
sometimes uneasy when it comes to explain their choice. For most of those who
risk an explanation, their choice is justified by a best supervision, less
numerous pupils (limited to forty, which is twice less than in public schools)
and the regular presence of teachers (even if in Djibouti, a rotation is done
nearly every year).
If in 2003, in Burkina Faso,
some parents would go to the Ivory Coast to work and pay for a year in a public
school for one of their children, in 2006, in Djibouti, others would leave “to save”
in Yemen to afford private school. In Chad,
some parents, political leaders, traders or senior civil servants, spend the
equivalent of two monthly salaries to send their child to the French school of N’djamena. Whatever the case, those
personal investments, combined with a wish to see their children succeed (and
get a qualification) prove the true commitment of parents in schooling.
CONCLUSION
This being so, the
different situations reported to the schooling process, which we were able to
approach, mainly refer to a phenomenon of a double bind or paradoxical
injunction. This phenomenon was reported by teachers, French speakers and
Arabic speakers. In the first case, teachers are running into difficulties to
establish a level of language and communication matched to the book and program
expectations, since they’re used to use a daily life, non scholar language. As
for teachers teaching in Arabic, they don’t or hardly find how to inscribe the
language to teach, learnt in the Arabic countries, inside the pupils’
linguistic practices, even if they belong to a linguistic context, in which
Arabic was “nationalized” (Chad or Djibouti, as an co-official language). These
two languages taught, stay away, even outside, from their daily using contexts.
As for teachers, the first ones struggle to stay in an academic field, whereas
the second have hard time getting out of it.
The families mainly
apply themselves to convincing themselves to the usefulness of one schooling,
without being able to act on the offers which are proposed and which become as
a result, imposed. They invest first and foremost in a school they imagine, not
that it will respect the transmission of the inheritance and knowledge which
are related to the different data and contexts, but that it is a possible way
to the social and professional recognition. Indeed, it consists in answering to
the requirement of “doing them succeed”, without being able to decide nor act
on the real chances of this success, nor especially on its characteristics or
its issues. However, to give up French school, means to accept unemployment,
even if it constitutes the fate of the majority. Therefore the economical’s
wealth concentration, called “development gaps” inside a political minority
didn’t make it possible to develop the public and private sectors enough, to
diversify the professional fields making them match with the local demand, to
extend the accommodation capacities of schools to the level required by these
countries’ demography. Thus, since the increase of the schooling rate can rhyme
with mass unemployment; this boost paradoxically represents a threat for the
African societies, a social and economical hindrance to the development,
especially if the only sought-after sector (the civil service) is glutted.
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Article 27: libre circulation des travailleurs, juin 2008, p.9.
[1] In Djibouti,
the adaptation is moderate. Even if children study during Ramadan and enjoy
school vacations at Christmas, Friday (and not Sunday) is the official day off
for schoolchildren.
[2] Foreign
languages learnt in high school in France are taught according to
their geographic proximity attribute: Spanish is first taught in South-West,
German in the East, Italian in South East etc. These languages are still the
ones that are taught in Africa.
[3] We’re
referring to an interview led with a burkinan primary school teacher, who
evokes the solidarity that constitutes the rural community facing the lack of
means. He quotes the example of the community building a roof for the
school. Cf. M. Ilboudo, Burkina
Faso, 2003.
[4] “The
important things we told him to do at home, he learns others at school. That’s
not a good thing that boys learn nearby girls” cf. Parent 8, Djibouti, 2006.
Other example of discourse can illustrate this idea : “More girls attend
school, less they’re attentive to what is said to them at home, such as giving
service at home, wearing decent cloths, respect the elderers”. Parent 4, Burkina Faso,
2008. In
Chad,
a parent says “Instead educating children, school miseducates them”. Parent 1, Chad, 2005.
[5] As regards to the enrolment, this is not checked in
the reality, since the enrolment of private schools can reach 45 pupils (per
class).
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