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NORDIC JOURNAL OF AFRICAN STUDIES ( NJAS , HELSINKI) , SPECIAL NUMBER 2000: � L'ECOLE ET LES LANGUES NATIONALES AU MALI �
ABSTRACTS :
Drissa Diakité : The School Crisis in Mali
Since 1990, school strikes have seriously hampered teaching in Mali, especially in secondary and higher education, and exams have been cancelled or held in spite of insufficient teaching. Some say the government has shown it knows how to save the school year but not how to save the school. This article analyses the complex reasons for this crisis, violence and corruption as its means of expression, the government's handling of it, as well as the internal and external consequences. It finally suggests some possible ways out of the crisis.
Samba Traoré : Teacher Training for the First Cycle of Primary School in Mali : Problems and Perspectives
After a historical overview of reforms in teacher training since independence in 1960, this article goes on to discuss the problems today, through fieldwork carried out in 1998 in Ségou and Mopti, the two sites chosen by this NUFU project. The article analyses the situation from the viewpoint of active teachers, retired teachers, school directors and pedagogical counsellors. The questionnaires show that the different parties find that the initial training is not adapted to today's needs, especially with respect to pedagogical innovations like convergent pedagogy. Such reforms are taught only in summer courses. Though this is necessary for teachers already in practice, new methods should be included in the initial training and at the same time supplementary education should not limit itself to the latest reforms, but reinforce and improve the teachers' pedagogical practice. Furthermore, there should be special training for teachers in schools for teachers.
Mamadou Lamine Haïdara : The Introduction of National Languages into the Educational System : the Attitudes of Teachers in Bamako
It is commonly thought that in many African countries, people's attitudes to the national languages as a medium of instruction are negative, that they prefer the European language because of its prestige and the social opportunities it offers. This article investigates the attitudes of teachers in primary school, key persons in the matter since they are the ones who teach in the national languages. An enquête was carried out in Bamako in 1990 and the results are re-examined ten years later in the light of the recent generalisation of such instruction. The conclusion is that teachers are more positive than one would think, and that the main reason for the positive attitude is sufficient information. Other variables like age, experience, level of instruction and geographical and social origin, play a lesser role. The educational authorities should therefore initiate campaigns to inform the teachers and the rest of the population of the usefulness of the national languages as means of instruction.
Soumana Kané : The Availability and Use of Textbooks in Language Instruction in Convergent Pedagogy Schools
This article looks at the use of text books in French and national languages in the type of bilingual education known as convergent pedagogy, which is now the official educational programme in Mali. Based on two field trips to Ségou in 1999, it gives the views of pupils, teachers and directors as expressed in interviews and questionnaires, and combines this with classroom observation. It suggests that though important additional funding is needed, the situation might be improved by a more efficient distribution chain at all levels and also by a more judicious choice of books for the class libraries. This includes more books in the national languages, for though the official policy is balanced bilingual teaching, French fares better in every way : the national language textbooks are fewer, distributed in smaller numbers, and come without teachers' guidebooks. One should thus start with the production of more textbooks in national languages.
Mamadou Lamine Kanouté : Mathematics and National Language in a Bambara School Context
This article studies the teaching of mathematics in bilingual education in the Bambara-speaking town of Ségou. The bilingual principles of convergent pedagogy are examined in the light of teaching material, teacher training and classroom practice. It shows that neither the textbooks nor the training enable the teachers to follow the pedagogical principles that have been laid down, and that the transition from Bambara to French, which takes place in the 4 th grade as far as mathematics is concerned, still represents a great problem in the 5 th grade. However, the fieldwork, which took place in 1997, revealed an interesting method that seemed to be a local invention. Building on the Bambara play of riddles, different groups challenge each other both in creating and solving mathematical problems, and the children participate eagerly in this game. This type of teaching fits in well with active pedagogy and could be introduced into convergent pedagogy at a general level.
Amadou Tamba Doumbia : Bambara Instruction According to Convergent Pedagogy : Theory and Practice
This article looks at the teaching of the Bambara language in comparison with that of French in schools that practice convergent pedagogy. It is based on three field trips to Ségou in 1998-99, with classroom observation in the six grades of four primary schools. It states that whereas French is taught in a systematic way, with weight on grammar, Bambara is taught indirectly, through different exercises like memorisation of words, reading and writing according to the global method, and dictation. Rules to explain mistakes are hardly ever given, and the teachers themselves make mistakes, especially in word segmentation. The conclusion is that though the active pedagogical method seems to work well, the mother tongue instruction lags behind that of the second language, thus jeopardising the mother tongue proficiency that is supposed to ease the acquisition of the second language.
Ingse Skattum : Written Bambara in Primary School
Language competence tests in the 5 th grade carried out in Ségou in 1997 show that after four years of Bambara instruction, the children are far from mastering their mother tongue in the written medium. This article analyses 28 stories freely told from a picture, and defines the most frequent types of errors, systemised in three major fields: sentence division, word segmentation and transcription of the sounds that are written differently in Bambara and French. The aim of this analysis is twofold: to help the teachers give more efficient instruction in written Bambara by identifying the most difficult points for the pupils, and to attract the educational authorities' attention to the fact that if the national languages are not equipped with grammars and orthographic rules, and the teachers are not properly trained to teach them, then mother tongue instruction will not help the children to improve their school results, nor will it develop the national languages as written means of communication.
Demba Pamanta : French Loan-words in the Fula Newspaper Kabaaru: a Linguistic and Socio-linguistic Analysis
The paper is a semantic, phonological, morphological, and socio-linguistic analysis of 213 French loan-words in the Fula dialect of Masina, Mali, the complete list of French loan-words found in the issues of the monthly newspaper Kabaaru published in the period 1995-1997. The words are classified according to their semantic domains ; most loan-words are found in the domains of technology and administration. It is shown how the loan-words are phonologically and morphologically integrated to different degrees into the linguistic system of Fula. Phonological integration implies a substitution of non-Fula phonemes and an adaptation to Fula syllable structure. Morphological integration, on the other hand, implies the introduction of noun class suffixes. The author has carried out an inquiry to test to what degree a group of newly literate native speakers of Fula living in villages in Masina understand a selection of these French loan-words. The degree of understanding varies significantly between �current loan-words' and �learned loan-words' � the latter group being loan-words that according to the author's evaluation are not much used outside the pages of Kabaaru . The paper ends with a discussion of the pros and cons of French loan-words in Fula.
Marianne Opheim : Girls' Schooling in Mali
This article deals with female primary education in Mali. Based on field work carried out in the village of Dougoukouna in 1997, it provides an analysis of the factors constraining girls' schooling in a rural context. It argues that in order to fully understand the low participation of girls in Malian education one must consider not only the factors that are directly related to female status but also those of a more general kind. The article then examines the main types of constraint that influence female participation in Malian education. The socio-linguistic factors, such as the official status of a foreign language and the absence of a written environment, affect both boys' and girls' participation in education. Some of the factors related to the school environment, like the lack of school materials and inadequate teacher training, also influence the participation of both sexes, whereas others are closely related to the lack of female education. In particular, the socio-cultural and the socio-economic factors such as early marriage, religious beliefs and the lack of labour market opportunities are closely interwoven and they constrain above all education for girls.
Gérard Dumestre : The Suffering School (a follow-up of �On the School in Mali')
This is a follow-up of a first article published in this same review in 1997. It develops further some of its major themes, for instance the necessity of better quality in the Malian system of education, the need of lucidity on the part of the educational authorities, the problem of national languages, and the concept of a �classroom school' ( classe-école , i.e. a school reduced to one class). The idea that just a small minority of children are actually affected by school problems is also developed.
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