Pre-school education in Algeria : a new deal?

Abstract

The history of educational reform in Algeria is more an account of failures --or half-successes-than anything else. At best, it reflects a succession of ad hoc, often ill-planned attempts devised to address situations that are both complex and problematic. The present state of affairs is in no way promising-indeed, the contrary is the case. After attaining independence in 1962, Algeria's rate of population growth remained at 3% per annum up to 1991, when it was brought down slightly to 2.5%. This has led to a situation which has an enormous impact on education: according to the 1987 census, 70% of the population is less that thirty years old. A 1994 report issued by the Ministry of Youth and Sports notes that as many as 240,000 young people a year are excluded from the educational system. Of these, only 14.6% find access to vocational training and employment schemes, and of those who do, half lose their place within a year. As many as two million are out of work. 60% of all young people between the 20 to 25 age bracket are without a source of income, 70% have no vocational qualification at all, 48.5% are deemed to have a very low level of education, bordering on functional illiteracy, while 12.6% of the males and 43% of the females are totally illiterate. The rise of fundamentalism in the early 1990's has had a devastating effect not only on democracy, but on the economy and education as well. According to the National Office of Statistics, around 410,000 Algerians fled the country between 1990 and 1995, never to return. Many of these emigrants were professionals and intellectuals, thus leaving Algeria deprived not only of highly qualified human resources, but also of some of the most dynamic citizens. Since 1992, and especially with the systematic assassination of intellectuals, journalists, and academics in 1993, education fell victim to fundamentalism. Up to 1995,815 schools had been sabotaged, with 100 being completely destroyed. As many as 142 teachers were executed in 1994. It is against this bleak and grim scenario that the present attempts of authorities to address deeply rooted problems and weaknesses at all levels of the educational system have to be assessed. With so much of the international literature now highlighting the impact of quality provision at the pre-primary level on overall educational attainment levels, this chapter will focus on the newly advocated systematic implementation of preschool education across Algeria. This reform signals the fact that policymakers have put aside their quantitative vision of education-where the sole concern is with increasing the number of pupils in schools, in training more teachers, in producing more textbooks, and in building more institutions-and have instead opted for a more qualitatively informed vision, where the questions being asked relate to the validity. and value of the process of learning itself. Given the present state of affairs, and taking into account the rather dismal record of previous educational reforms, the challenge of extending pre-school education and to ensure its quality seems a bit like a wager. This is particularly true when one looks closely at the fortunes of the 1976 Ordinance which formally established pre-school education 'on the principle that it is a noncompulsory preparatory stage for schooling constituting a good back-up and a substitute for a lack of family education'. The July 1976 reform had therefore attempted to transform a system of education that was totally modeled on that of France, with one that was not only rooted in the cultural realities and aspirations of the nation, but which also attempted to compensate for the handicaps in learning linked to the socio-cultural milieu of the pupil. Despite the set-backs suffered in implementing that and other reforms, one simply cannot afford to ignore the pre-school level, knowing that failure at both primary and secondary education can be traced back to the lack of preparation of the young for the learning enterprise. It is highly significant that in 1998, only 3% of the whole school population had attended pre-primary. Little attention has been given by the State to this level of schooling, a fact that is witnessed by Table I which provides the extant statistics for the number of pre-primary classes in Algeria's second largest city after Algiers, Oran. The decision by the State to allow pre-school institutions to be run privately, while encouraging the development of services that the State is hard pressed to deliver, is not necessarily the best way to ensure stability in educational provision. That the State should make a commitment to preschool education is clear when one considers not only the positive impact that this could have on the other sectors of schooling, but also the socio-economic returns of such an investment for the nation. The latter argument might be gaining in importance, given that the theme of education as investment was highlighted by all the candidates for the 1999 presidential elections-from the most democrat to the most fundamentalist. It is therefore increasingly apparent that the political class is considering education-including preschooling- as an important tool and strategy in responding to social demand.