Aly Ouattara
Four years after a military and political crisis d ivided the education system of Cote d’Ivoire, the country has finally found a way to make all schools begin their academic year at the same time again.
The synchronised start to the school year was disrupted when the rebel New Forces (Forces Nouvelles) took control of the north of the country after an attempted coup in 2002 – alleging discrimination against those living in the north.
The Ivorian minister of education and the rebels reached agreement on a common academic year after two years of intense negotiations conducted at the initiative of groups that are assisting Cote d’Ivoire with education – namely the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.
“Now, it is still possible to for us to achieve reconciliation through education,” said Education and Basic Training Minister Michel Amani N’guessan. He was speaking at a traditional preparatory meeting for the beginning of school held earlier this month at the Sainte Marie de Cocody high school, in the commercial capital of Abidjan.
The newly synchronised start of the latest academic year has enabled students displaced into government-controlled areas by fighting to return en masse to their home towns, now occupied by rebels, to re-enroll in their former schools.
“In one or two weeks, we’ll be able to tell exactly how many students registered. But relative to previous years, we’re going to see progress,” said Kanigui Soro, an official from a New Forces committee that deals with schools and examinations.
However, while all schools opened their doors at the same time last week, enrollment was poor in certain instances, IPS found. According to parents in areas under rebel and government control, mid-month financial woes were to blame.
“There’s no money for school supplies and to pay fees. For the moment, everyone’s waiting until the end of the month,” said Korona Tuo, a sales representative at a company in Abidjan. “We’re waiting until we get paid...before we start spending.”
Another problem is presented by the fact that classes in the north have mostly been taught by untrained volunteers over recent years, after teachers left to work in government-controlled areas.
In a bid to address this, the minister of education has ordered that applications be sought from trained teachers for schools affected by the educational “brain drain”. He has also authorised regional and departmental directors in northern, central and western zones under rebel control to appoint school principals.
N’guessan said volunteer teachers were under contracts which specified that they would not continue working when the tenured holders of their posts returned: “But the volunteer can continue to receive the subsidies he was granted from the Schools Board of Management until the end of the year.”
However, the Movement of Volunteer Teachers of Cote d’Ivoire (Mouvement des enseignants volontaires de Côte d’Ivoire, MEVCI) -- which operates in the north, west and centre of the country -- says the minister has also made promises about ongoing employment for volunteers that he needs to uphold.
According Souleymane Traoré, MEVCI coordinator for the north, the minister pledged to make 1,951 of the approximately 10,000 volunteers civil service workers, and to look into new job opportunities for the remaining 8,059.
“If the minister wants the start of school to take place normally, he needs to keep the promises he made to us last August,” Traoré told IPS, adding: “As long as the integration promised by the minister of the 1,951 volunteers into the civil service...(is) not considered, there will be no appointment of new teachers in our zones.”
Brahima Ouattara, inspector of primary education in Korhogo, believes the schooling problems in the north stem from other factors as well.
“The schools have never received assistance or support,” he noted. “Our problems remain the lack of teachers and the deterioration of our teaching equipment.”
Furthermore, says Salif Kinafo Touré, an inspector in Niakaramadougou, in the centre of Cote d’Ivoire, “The north has a small percentage of children in full-time education due to the lack of awareness of parents, some of whom prefer their children in the fields instead of in school.”
The campaign to enroll girls, initiated by UNICEF and taken over by school directors and educational advisors, has been successful, but there is still much to do, said Jean Francois Coulibaly, president of a school management board -- and Karim Touré, a French teacher at a high school in Nielle, in the far north. (Parents often choose to give their sons preference when it comes to schooling, as it is frequently assumed that girls are destined for domestic work -- and have no need of education.)
“We hope that this unified start of school will create social cohesion and will defuse the socio-political situation, which has taken an enormous toll on the psychological state of the children in particular, and on that of teachers as well,” noted Karim Touré.
Warned Ouattara, “If the powers that be aren’t careful to save education in the rebel zones, the intellectual handicap that will result will not only be limited to these areas, but could spill across the entire country.”
“The education and training of all youth will suffer.”
