Sociolingo’s Mali

Source: IRIN NEWS

MALI: Teacher strikes may mean ‘blank’ school year

BAMAKO, 10 June 2008 (IRIN) - In Mali the most important exams come last: the baccalaureate at the end of June. But this year, with secondary-school teachers in their seventh straight month of strikes, the exam risks going unmarked, meaning students may face a blank school year. That is making many of them angry.

Secondary school teachers have refused to invigilate or mark any secondary school exams. While the government sent in emergency invigilators from the national teaching academy to monitor the exams which began in late May, these invigilators are not qualified to mark them.

“It is time for the arm-wrestling between the government and teachers to stop. Our future of is at stake,” said Mohamed Ibrahim Baby, secretary-general of the Association of Malian students (EMEA). “How can we study throughout the school year yet not have our exams marked?”

The baccalaureate is the minimum qualification for many professional posts in Mali, including the teaching profession, and under a quarter of Malian students reach the position to take it.

Teacher demands

Teachers are asking the government to give them a US$142 housing allowance, calling for contract teachers’ salaries to be increased and for salaries to go up year on year as teachers remain in the system. Currently, while pay increases annually at the same rates as all state-sector workers - they went up by five percent in January 2008 - the pay-grades do not. Meanwhile qualified teachers who are not state-certified receive lower salaries than government-qualified teachers and are unable to participate in teacher training.

“None of our demands have yet been met,” complained Youssouf Berthe, secretary-general of the country’s group of teachers’ unions, COSES. “The government has paid university professors US$142 each to help them with housing - why can’t we get the same? This isn’t a luxury we’re demanding, it’s simply so we can live in decent conditions.”

And the fight does not look set to end. “We have decided to go all the way this time - we will not stop until our demands are met. They must be resolved once and for all this year,” Amadou Lougué a teacher at Kati Secondary school, 20km from Bamako told IRIN.

Protests have worked in the past. In 2007 teachers unions protested for the government to meet back-payments for overtime worked, and the government relented in February 2008.

In a press conference on 8 June President Amadou Toumani Touré announced the government was seeking solutions to end the crisis, but that when it came to the housing allowance the government would not give in.

The reason he gave was simple: “The state cannot afford to pay such an allowance,” he told reporters.

“We have made enormous efforts to improve the lot of teachers. If we also give housing allowances today, tomorrow they will ask for more, and after that health-workers and other state officials will ask for the same thing,” President Touré continued.

The education ministry has set up a special Parliamentary commission to meet with teachers’ unions, parents and students associations to try to resolve the crisis.

Some school-heads welcome the move. “We will take all necessary steps because we must save the school year. A blank school year doesn’t suit the students or their parents and will not serve the country,” said Daouda Simbara, head of a secondary school.

In the meantime, parents and students are calling for the stand-off to end. The EMEA has appealed for “good sense to prevail” from all involved, while Mamadou Traoré, member of a Bamako-wide parent-teachers association told IRIN, “Teachers must know that every fight has an end. The government has already satisfied some of their demands. They must now think about the lives of students who have not yet completed the school year.”

He added, “You cannot get everything you want at the same time.”

Watch this video about a school in southern Mali

African Sky Presents a video short that takes you to visit a rural primary school in Mali. Produced by Scott M. Lacy. All rights reserved, 2007

An encouraging report on education in Mali . Here’s a few translated snippets:

2006, like the three previous years, was a year of action for basic education, marked by the development of infrastructures, provision of equipment and the training of personnel. School authorities indicate that 60 young graduates have been trained in the rules of transcription of national languages, and people from the académies d’enseignement and the local CAPs have been given technical training in follow-up evaluation and a reinforcement of their linguistic competencies. School directors have received training in the new curriculum, level 1, and the department of education has run a number of workshops and seminars to reinforce the abilities of trainers.

The non-formal education policy document has been finalised as part of phase 1 of the war against poverty and the preparation of the report of that phase [Janet, Thomas and I went to the validation workshop for this last year]. Further training sessions are planned in order to guard the health of the education system.

As regards environmental education and the techniques of environmental education: training has been given to 1152 school directors, 40 national level trainers, 776 local level trainers, 203 professors at the teacher training institute, 128 educators at education centres, and 3,000 teachers and 5 educators of kindergartens. There has also been follow-up support in 73 establishments, sensitisation campaigns in secondary and higher schools, and a debate on radio. Two new modules on environmental education will be introduced into secondary and higher schools. School textbooks have been revised together with teacher’s notes and activity workbooks for the 4th and 5th years of basic education, and the training modules have been adapted at the teacher training institute.

Results from examinations have shown a good increase in the pass rate over the last four years: for the certificate at the end of the 6th year of schooling - 70% passed; diploma of fundamental education (end of year 9) - more than 62% passed; the technical BAC - almost 71% passed; the general BAC 48.12% passed.

An encouraging report on education in Mali appeared this week in Malikounda. Here’s a few translated snippets:
2006, like the three previous years, was a year of action for basic education, marked by the development of infrastructures, provision of equipment and the training of personnel. School authorities indicate that 60 young graduates have been trained in the rules of transcription of national languages, and people from the académies d’enseignement and the local CAPs have been given technical training in follow-up evaluation and a reinforcement of their linguistic competencies. School directors have received training in the new curriculum, level 1, and the department of education has run a number of workshops and seminars to reinforce the abilities of trainers.

The non-formal education policy document has been finalised as part of phase 1 of the war against poverty and the preparation of the report of that phase. Further training sessions are planned in order to guard the health of the education system.

As regards environmental education and the techniques of environmental education: training has been given to 1152 school directors, 40 national level trainers, 776 local level trainers, 203 professors at the teacher training institute, 128 educators at education centres, and 3,000 teachers and 5 educators of kindergartens. There has also been follow-up support in 73 establishments, sensitisation campaigns in secondary and higher schools, and a debate on radio. Two new modules on environmental education will be introduced into secondary and higher schools. School textbooks have been revised together with teacher’s notes and activity workbooks for the 4th and 5th years of basic education, and the training modules have been adapted at the teacher training institute.

Results from examinations have shown a good increase in the pass rate over the last four years: for the certificate at the end of the 6th year of schooling - 70% passed; diploma of fundamental education (end of year 9) - more than 62% passed; the technical BAC - almost 71% passed; the general BA 48.12% passed.

On 4th September the World Bank gave Mali 35 million dollars to use for education. The representative of the World Bank gave the cheque to the Minister of Economy and Finance as part of Phase 2 of the investment in the education sector (PISE) in order to improve the quality of education and to make the Millenium Development Goals (MDG) possible in Mali. The funding is specifically to help reduce the number of children who abandon primary education, reduce the regional differences in between boys and girls, and also to help with the better utilisation of funding in the primary sector. The Minister reported that the rate of enrollement has risen in the last 10 years from 47.8% IN 1995/6 TO 72% IN 2004/5. The education budget has also risen from 3.02% in 2000 to 3.24% in 2004.

For full report in French see http://www.essor.gov.ml/