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- Convenors:
-
Jean-Luc Martineau
(INALCO (CESSMA))
Ellen Vea Rosnes (VID Specialized University)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- 'Françafrique'
- Location:
- Room 1139
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 8 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
The field of education in former French colonies at independence is a relevant entry to analyse the influence networks that made Françafrique. However, it seems to us just as important to compare the French and British spheres of influences. A comparative perspective highlights both specificities.
Long Abstract:
School structures condition children or adolescents and induce the behavior of communities, social groups or specific professional environments to which they belong. In colonial contexts, the school system was dominated by the transfers of know-how, experiences and policies from colonial metropolises. In a post-independence context, bilateral and multilateral structures such as UN organizations continued this transfer of know-how from the Global North to the Global South. The great number of educational scientists in colonial administrations who became technical advisers to UNESCO or UNICEF is one indication to this. The field of education is a key entry for the analysis of the networks that made Françafrique.
It seems just as important to compare different spheres of influences. British Africa was also a laboratory of transfers in educational matters with political and economic consequences. African elites (politicians, doctors, academics, craftsmen and students) retained in general a privileged link with former colonizers. They were trained in institutions designed by advisers influenced by old metropolitan systems, and perpetuated with cooperation agreements (curriculum, diplomas, methods, language of instruction, bibliographical references, materials and machines…).
Through a comparison, we call into question the idea that educational knowledge transfers and its consequences in Françafrique and British Africa were as straightforward as some research has indicated. Were school systems in French-speaking Africa closer to those of the old metropolis and more likely to lead to the drifts of French-Africanism? Were school systems of English-speaking Africa more detached from the British model and more suited to post-independence nationalist demands?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 8 June, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
This paper aims to search for explanations to why the education system during Madagascar’s first Republic was regarded as a failure. A critical analysis of a lack of adaptation and the continuing relations with the former colonial power is essential in this regard.
Paper long abstract:
The right to education constituted a key principle in the Malagasy constitution at independence in 1960. In 1962, primary education was restructured into two cycles. The first cycle was 4 years (CP and CE) and the second was 2 years (CM). The education policy of the newly established Republic after French colonisation for over 60 years was ambitious. Within a period of 10 years, the aim was to increase the enrolment rate of school-aged children for the first cycle from 44% to 78% (Republique Malgache. Ministère de l’éducation nationale 1964). In 1968, the Malagasy student organisation Fédération des associations d`étudiants de Madagascar (FAEM) had their 4th national seminar and the subject was Malgachisation and democratisation of education. Teachers, professors, students and leaders of youth movements participated in the seminar. According to its report, there was a need for malgachisation of the education system to adapt to the economic situation, use the Malagasy language and favour a collective spirit. If the main criterion of selection in Malagasy schools continued to be mastering the French language, only privileged children gained access whereas poor children only became failures of a system hindering their aspirations. The Malagasy education system was described a failure. Based on this report, other archival materials and secondary sources, this paper aims to search for explanations to why the education system during Madagascar’s first Republic was regarded a failure. A critical analysis of the lack of adaptation and continuing relations with the former colonial power is essential in this regard.
Paper short abstract:
To promote the development of the third world the UN fostered the creation of technical assistance programmes. This paper studies the experience of Africans who were granted fellowships from the ILO during the 1950s-1960s and were sent to France to study the functioning of the sécurité sociale.
Paper long abstract:
In order to promote the social development of the emerging third world in the 1950s and to contain the « spread of communism » in the context of the Cold War, the United Nations and its agencies (Food and Agriculture Organisation, International Labour Organisation, World Health Organisation) fostered the creation of technical assistance programmes all over the world. On the one hand European and american experts were sent to Asia, South America and Africa to support economical growth and social development in the visited countries. On the other hand local young executives and workers, who acted as counterparts of the experts, were granted fellowships to study in Europe. This contribution aims at understanding, from a historical perspective, the experience of the Africans who were granted fellowships from the ILO during the 1950s and the 1960s and were sent to France in order to explore the functioning of the french welfare state. We’ll show, in this contribution, how international funds and technical assistance, while increasing the mobility of young Africans to Europe, reinforced the french position of dominance in Africa and contributed to export the french model of social security across the continent. This work is based on the archives of the French ministry of Work and Social Security (The subserie AN/19760145) and the archives of the technical assistance programme of the ILO in Geneva (the subserie TAP).
Paper short abstract:
The educational proposals of the Yoruba Action Group in 1952 had been shaped from the British traditions therefore, despite it huge consequences on the building process of the Yoruba regional identity, it was rather inconsistant regarding the theorical reframing of a post-colonial primary education policy.
Paper long abstract:
The training of yoruba primary schools teachers in nigerian Teachers Training Institutes and in UK after the 2d WW had multiple consequences on the framing of the Free Education Scheme in the Yoruba Western Region of Nigeria proposed in 1952 and implemented up to 1963. Due to the way christian mission schools were involved in the colonial education policy up to the 2WW, there had been few questions about the relevantness to go ahead with the same principles after 1945. It was the case for the colonial policy and its financements after the war but also for the Free Education Scheme set up by the Action Group, the nationalist Yoruba party and their leaders and policy designers M. Adekunle Ajasin, Stephen Awokoya and Obafemi Awolowo in 1952.
Through the past interactions with their UK professors at the IoE in London, the practices of the Department of education in the British administration in Nigeria, the necessity to start from the existant system set up in the 19th C., and the social aspirations of the Yoruba, M. A. Ajasin as well as S. Awokoya did not break off with the former colonial system as it could have been proposed in other colonial territories. From the archival material collected in London and Nigeria, this proposal aim to illustrate how this educational proposal had been politically of huge consequences in the building process of the Yoruba regional political identity when it was rather inconsistant regarding the theorical reframing of a post-colonial primary education policy.