Girls often miss school because they are asked to stay home to help with chores, are promised in marriage at a young age, or are pregnant. This reveals a gender discrepancy, with boys scoring more than 10 points higher than girls. While a report by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggests that education scores are improving overall, the achievement rate of primary education has some critical gaps, as seen in Table 1. The Burkinabe progressively lost much of their individual and collective identities, preventing them from taking the initiative to change their educational systems. The French imposed their language as the exclusive means of instruction, although there are 59 native languages in Burkina Faso, and 90% of the population speak just 14 of them. The colonial experience was traumatic in many ways. The country has struggled to catch up with the rest of the continent the first university in the capital city, Ouagadougou, was not established until 1974. The country has a literacy rate of only 46% (UNICEF, 2012), and a youth unemployment rate around 43% (Lavoie, 2008). As a result, Burkina Faso failed to develop critical infrastructures and fell behind in many areas, including education. Thus, during colonization, the French invested mainly in Dakar, Senegal, because it was not only more easily accessible but more profitable. Burkina Faso has always lacked resources such as water, minerals, fertile soil, oil, and gas. These geographical and historical summaries are significant because of their effect on the educational system. (Burkina is “men of integrity” in Mòoré Faso in Dioula means “fatherland.”)įrench tends to be seen as the language of development and hope, not only by the elite, but also by the Burkinabe people in general. It was renamed Burkina Faso in 1984, taking a word from each of the country’s two major native languages, Mòoré and Dioula. In 1960, the nation gained its independence from France. By 1947, the French restored Upper Volta as a separate territory in French West Africa. In 1919, the French further divided their area of land, separating Upper Volta from French Sudan and then further dismantled and divided this colony in 1932. The Anglo-French Convention of 1898 ended the fighting between Britain and France and created new borders between their colonies. Women bear an average of 6.2 children, and life expectancy is 51 years. More than half the population is under 15 years old. Yet the country relies heavily on agriculture, with 77% of the population living in rural areas (Institut National de la Statistique et de la Demographie, 2011). Some 16 million people are spread over 105, 000 square miles of dry land. Burkina Faso borders Mali to the north, Niger to the northeast, and Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire to the south. To that extent, the Burkinabe government and local nongovernmental organizations have started a program, Bilingual Indigenous Community Education, which aims to instruct students in both their native tongue and the country’s French national language.Ī brief history and overview of the region may help explain why. Scholars say the problem stems from the lack of culturally appropriate education, and some have suggested bilingual education as part of a solution. Landlocked, sub-Saharan Burkina Faso has battled high illiteracy and high dropout rates since gaining independence from France in 1960. In one of the world’s poorest countries, a model of bilingual education is emerging that could have a substantial effect on the nation. Bilingual education could improve education outcomes in one of the world’s poorest nations.
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