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From Africa Recovery, Vol.11#4 (March 1998), page 13 (part of Special Feature on the 2-year review of UNSIA)
Enrolment to rise in the Sahel
Financing of teachers' salaries is a key constraint
By Peter Masebu
Representatives from seven Sahelian countries -- Burkina Faso, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Chad, Mali, Niger and Senegal -- met in Dakar, Senegal, from 18-21 January to exchange ideas on ways to reverse declining or stagnating trends in primary school enrolment, focusing on the recruitment and training of teachers and financing of their salaries.
The World Bank-sponsored workshop was among the first of a series of subregional activities planned within the education component of the UN Special Initiative on Africa to address constraints on achieving universal primary education.
According to Mr. Birger Fredriksen, the World Bank's Africa Regional Technical Director for Human Resources, these countries were targeted because school enrolment has remained virtually unchanged for the past 15 years. This is a dangerous situation, warned Mr. Fredriksen, because "no country has been able to develop with a majority of its population illiterate."
Mr. Djimangar Dadnadji, Chad's director-general at the Ministry of National Education, said his country faces an uphill task unless a decisive break is made with an educational system in which the state funds everything from teachers' salaries to housing and school materials.
`Home-generated' ideas
Mr. Dadnadji attributed Chad's increased enrolment rate to "spontaneous schools" created voluntarily by civil servants who fled the war in Ndjamena to the rural areas. The schools are staffed by "community teachers" paid by parents' contributions.
Expressing the Bank's frustration that enrolment is not rising in spite of substantial donor assistance, Mr. Fredriksen said, "We have difficulty in countries with low enrolment like Mali, which has had rates of around 30-35 per cent since the 1970s. We have come to a stage where we cannot lend them any more money because they cannot afford to recruit the teachers that they need to put into the classrooms." It is not the Bank's role to finance the recruitment of primary school teachers, he said.
In an interview, the UNESCO Director for Basic Education, Ms. Aãcha Bah Diallo, a former minister in Guinea, expressed optimism that the situation will change under the UN Special Initiative on Africa, which coincides with the launching of the African Education Decade by African leaders. "Under the Special Initiative, it is African governments themselves that will specify their needs. Donors will only accompany them with financial or technical support. What was wrong in the past was that they were told `do this'," she said.
A positive sign, Ms. Diallo noted, is "home-generated" ideas by several Sahelian countries to increase the number of primary school teachers by tapping the growing reservoir of jobless graduates, reallocating civil servants to teaching and transferring teachers from secondary to primary schools.
The UN Initiative's success will depend on basic education becoming an affair of all stakeholders, said Mr. Armoogum Parsuramen, the World Bank's education policy specialist. "That's why we tried to bring several categories of people to this meeting -- trade unionists, parents' associations and others," said the former Mauritian education minister.
The involvement of the African Federation of Pupils and Students' Parents (FAPE) was one example at the Dakar workshop. FAPE, which has branches in 13 francophone countries, suggested the creation of a fund for the development of education and training, stressing that since an educated populace is of benefit to the entire society, contributions should come from all sectors, including parents, governments and private business.
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