Paper short abstract:

This paper, based on scientific literature and qualitative interviews in Senegal from 2009 to 2012, seeks to understand how instructional time has joined the factors of educational inequality in primary schools and how the situation is linked with representations and strategies of multi-level actors

Paper long abstract:

Since the Jomtien Conference, undeniable progresses towards expanding access to primary education have been registered. But this success has not been met with comparable progress in improving education quality and equity.

This paper seeks to demonstrate that education inequalities in Africa may take various forms. Next to the broad discrimination of learners from poor households or based on the gender, another less acknowledged disparity is lurking behind: the inequality of instructional time. Using Senegal as our case study, we aim to illustrate the way that instructional time, roughly defined as the amount of time students spend learning, is uneven between schools with some providing up to 50% more learning time than others; an inequity which creates significant gaps in learning outcomes. These school time discrepancies are linked to the actions of multi-level actors with various ranks of responsibilities and diverse representations and strategies.

After a description of the causes for instructional time inequalities, we will analyse the responsibilities and strategies of actors from three levels: at the macro level, we will strive to understand the norms of instructional time channelled by international organisations and how they may be irrelevant to the Senegalese social context. At the national level, we shall study the struggle of the Senegalese administration to establish school time a key challenge for education public policy. And at the local level, we will examine how instructional time currently influences families' choices for schooling and is a lethal instrument used by teachers in their recurrent conflicts against the government.