The making of a national bilingual education policy in Senegal

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Inclusion of non-dominant languages in multilingual education: Language-in-education policy change around the world

Proposal

French is the official language of instruction in Senegal, despite the fact that only 3.2% of the adult population of Senegal speak French as their L1 and 28.97% as their L2 (Eberhard, Simons, and Fennig, 2019). This prevents students from understanding curricular content. The Ministry of Education recently adopted a bilingual education policy (MOHEBS) whereby Senegalese national languages will be taught alongside French, thanks to the advocacy work of Senegalese "militants" for national languages. This policy is planned for implementation in 2023 in nine regions of the country and in the six national languages ratified in the Constitution–Wolof, Pulaar, Seereer, Jola, Mandinka, and Soninke–alongside French. At varying times and in different capacities, these self-proclaimed militants have contributed to the experimentations of bilingual education, and to all the needs of bilingual education, including the codification of national languages, the development of dictionaries and grammars, the nurturing of linguists and bilingual educators, and research on learning outcomes that led to this recent policy change.

​​This paper provides an historical overview of national languages within Senegalese national institutions, and how the making of the national bilingual education policy has come about. I apply Kosonen & Benson’s (2021) analytical framework of language-in-education policy change to demonstrate how the militants were able to seize windows of opportunity to advance their national languages agenda, through triangulating the accounts of the militants from their interviews with policy analysis and historical research. I also expand on Kosonen & Benson’s (2021) analytical framework’s interpretative potential by including Kingdon’s (1984, 1995) Multiple Streams Approach, and Cowen’s (1996, 2000) concept of educational codings and transitology, to present the sequence of events that led to the national bilingual education policy.

Based on my analysis, I identify four moments of transition in Senegal’s history of education as crucial windows of opportunities that were seized in terms of national languages in education, leading up to the MOHEBS policy. I have named these phases as follows: From Senghor to Diouf’s presidency: La grande grève des enseignants and les États-Généraux de l’éducation et de la formation (1978-1981); Diouf’s presidency: The literacy era (1990s-2000s); From literacy to formal education in national languages (2000-2008); Critical juncture: Toward a national bilingual education policy and planning (2008-present).

These four moments were identified as moments of policy windows because: 1) I found evidence that militants as policy entrepreneurs took advantage of these moments to intervene in favor of national languages and its integration into Senegalese institutions; and 2) these moments also corresponded to larger social, political, and economic moments of transition, both nationally and globally. I argue that the militants had an acute reading of these moments and were thus able to knowingly reposition national languages within public discourse in such a way that this topic remains relevant and important throughout time. The current national bilingual education policy is a testimony to the living, consistent, and persistent national language advocacy work that has been done throughout the course of over 50 years.

Author

• Erina Iwasaki, Teachers College, Columbia Un.