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Achieving mother tongue literacy for sustainable development in Senegal

Wed, April 17, 8:00 to 9:30am, Hyatt Regency, Floor: Bay (Level 1), Bayview B

Proposal

The renewed global focus on early grade reading and literacy is an opportunity to revisit the type of education we seek to offer new generations. In Senegal, from the perspective of educators, civil society, and many parents, the country needs “new” Senegalese citizens: adapted to their times, uninhibited, self-aware and self-confident. Beyond the facility of helping children mastering reading skills, the validation of one’s own identity while becoming a global citizen is one of the most important contributions of national languages in schooling.

This paper will present applied, empirical and conceptual research on the importance of reading, writing, and teaching in national languages for sustainable development in Senegal; the kind of citizen sought from this education; and challenges and strategies for achieving the goal of helping all Senegalese children realize their full potential. The data and questions from this case are relevant for research, interventions, and policies in the field of comparative education and literacy. Particularly for African countries entering the path of emergence in a "globalized" world, this kind of critical examination is much needed.

To achieve both sustainable early grade reading reforms and sustainable development from these reforms, it is critical to valorise and strengthen national expertise to instrumentalize national languages together with other evidence-based methodologies. This is the aim of the USAID-supported Lecture Pour Tous program led by Ministry of National Education with partners such as the NGO Associates in Research and Education for Development (ARED), operating in this sector for more than 27 years (Dia, 2016). Through research, data analysis and debate between stakeholders, Senegal now has provisional reading norms and standards – and the 2017 EGRA baseline showed that only 0.1% of Grade 2 students achieve the minimum benchmark for their grade.

To make the monumental progress now for every child to realize her development potential and for the country to have the citizens it needs to develop sustainably as a society, there is much to do. One key component is the crafting and production of quality, diverse, inclusive, context-appropriate and empowering teaching and learning materials in sufficient quantities that follow the evidence base of how children learn to read while ensuring that what they read nourishes them as citizens. The additional challenge in Senegal, as elsewhere, is to settle on the right bilingual model using many national languages together with the second language, French. At the same time, these materials must be developed with ministry partners and model how private publishers can continue to produce such materials in the future.

The Lecture Pour Tous experience presented here will demonstrate both the challenges encountered and strategies we are testing, such as the development of pedagogical specifications and right combination of international and national expertise in all steps of the editorial process. Latest EGRA data will show how we are progressing. We then welcome feedback to together identify ways to achieve the vision of national education institutions, private sector actors, civil society, and parents taking ownership for the success of their children and the country.

Authors