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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Mauritania
Index
Classroom in a Nouakchott school
Courtesy United Nations (J. Laure)
The French colonial administration established a system of
public schools in Mauritania. The French schools were largely
concentrated in the sedentary communities in the Senegal River
Valley. In 1950 the first teacher training school was established
at Boutilimit, and in 1957 the secondary school in Rosso also
began training teachers. In part because public schools were
concentrated in the south, black Africans enrolled in large
numbers. As a result, the overwhelming majority of public school
teachers were black, and blacks came to dominate the nation's
secular intelligentsia.
The few French schools located in nomadic areas had
difficulty attracting students. The Maures in particular were
reluctant to accept the public schools and continued to favor
purely Islamic instruction. Gradually, however, they began to
send their children to public schools, as they saw that
traditional religious training was not preparing their children
for life in the twentieth century. The French also experimented
with "mobile schools" after World War II, and in this way they
provided public education for a larger number of nomads. In 1954
there were twelve so-called "tent" schools serving 241 students.
At least some of these tent schools continued to function after
independence.
The independent government viewed secular education as one of
the major methods to promote national unity, as well as a
necessary step toward the development of a modern economy. It
still faced shortages of funds, adequately trained teaching
staff, and classroom facilities at all levels. Another teacher
training school was opened in Nouakchott in 1964.
School attendance was not compulsory, and in 1964-65 only
19,100 primary-school students and 1,500 secondary-school
students--about 14 percent of school-age children--were enrolled.
By 1985 an estimated 35 percent of primary-school-age children
were enrolled in school, but only about 4 to 10 percent of
eligible secondary-school-age children were enrolled. In both
cases, boys heavily outnumbered girls.
In 1985-86 primary-school enrollments had climbed to 140,871,
and enrollments in secondary and vocational schools amounted to
34,674. The government reported a total of 878 primary schools
and 44 secondary or vocational institutions. A total of 4,336
students were enrolled in postsecondary training programs. An
additional 448 students were attending the National Islamic
Institute (formerly the Institute of Islamic Studies), and some
1,900 Mauritanians were enrolled in various training programs
abroad. The public schools employed almost 2,900 primary
teachers, 1,563 secondary and vocational teachers (412 of them
foreign), and 237 postsecondary instructors, more than half of
them expatriates. In 1982 the National College of Administration
and the National College of Sciences opened in Nouakchott, and in
1983 nearly 1,000 students began instruction at the University of
Nouakchott.
Illiteracy remained a major problem and an important
impediment to economic and social development. In 1985 the adult
literacy rate was estimated at 17 to 25 percent, approximately
half the average for sub-Saharan Africa. Nonetheless, this rate
represented an improvement over the estimated 5 percent literacy
rate at independence and 10 percent a decade later. Recognizing
the need for a better educated work force, in mid-1986 the
government launched a major literacy campaign and created the
State Secretariat of Culture, Information, and Telecommunications
to head the effort. That same year, the government reported that
the number of literacy classes had already increased more than
ten times over the 1985 number.
At the same time, the cost of education was quite high in
comparison with neighboring countries. In the mid-1980s,
Mauritania was spending about US$45 million (20 percent of
current expenditures) on education every year. Its costs for
primary schooling were the highest per student in francophone
West Africa, and only Côte d'Ivoire exceeded the cost per
secondary pupil. These high costs were due in part to teachers'
salaries, particularly those of expatriates, and to a generous
system of scholarships. Planned investment in education for the
years 1985 through 1988 was set at US$27 million under the
Economic Recovery Program for 1985-88, an increase of less than 1
percent over the period from 1980 through 1984.
The French system of primary and secondary schools remained
in force into the late 1980s. Over the years, however, some
significant changes had been made, and others were planned. In
the early 1980s, instruction in Pulaar, Azayr (Soninké), and
Wolof was introduced into the primary school curriculum, and
Arabic was emphasized at all levels. The official policy of
gradually replacing French with local languages and Arabic,
adopted in the late 1970s, drew vigorous protests from Frenchspeaking black Mauritanians and was abandoned within a decade.
Mauritania remained critically short of skilled labor. In the
mid-1980s, only about 15 percent of secondary-school students
were enrolled in vocational education. To redress this situation
and to raise the general level of literacy, the government
encouraged the growth of private and Quranic schools; most
industrial training took place in private institutions. More
important, the government also turned to the international
community. In 1987 the World Bank agreed to help make
Mauritania's education system more responsive to the country's
development needs. Proposed changes involved expanding primary
education and restructuring secondary schooling. Special
attention was to be given to vocational training in areas of
particular national need, such as water engineering and
fisheries.
Data as of June 1988
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