Learning in Senegal

"It is enough to name the thing for the meaning to appear beneath the sign."

An educational ambition in short supply

Senegal has around 17 million inhabitants, a quarter of whom live in Dakar (0.3% of the country's surface area). The country has one of the highest economic growth rates in Africa, in excess of 5%.

Education is considered a national priority in Senegal, with policies aimed at improving access to education for all. There is a long tradition of education, with renowned universities and educational institutions such as the Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar, the country's largest university.

However, Niant (2020) notes in his thesis "the notorious inadequacy of initial teacher training and the concomitant lack of adjustment in in-service training". While teachers would be crucial in fostering the development of knowledge useful to society, they would be in short supply, poorly remunerated and trained too quickly.

Informal learning in territories

A learning territory is a geographical space where learning is seen as a continuous and collective process, involving all local players, in order to develop knowledge and skills to solve problems and meet the challenges facing the community.

Four descriptors characterize a learning territory:

• Physical spaces/infrastructures: places from which specific desires and cultures unfold. Places that support learning and economic development. They respond to the need to live.
  
  
• Flowing living organic process: the learning territory is first and foremost adaptations to what are there projects. It responds to the need to satisfy a vital impulse.
  
  
• Human community: the learning territory is all about links and commensality between players who are leaders in their communities, whether they be ordinary citizens, organizations or institutions. It responds to the challenge of learning, undertaking and innovating together.
  
  
• Intention of a common work, raison d'être and common good: the learning territory is a shared vision at the service of the common good. It responds to the aspiration for a better future.

Senegal has some characteristics of a learning territory for several reasons

On the one hand, it supports community learning initiatives. Initiatives are set up to encourage community learning, learning spaces created and managed by the communities themselves to meet their specific educational needs. A tradition of transmission from master to pupil exists. (Gaye 2019)

Senegal has also set up participatory structures to enable the population to actively contribute to the development of their community. Development Councils and Community Development Committees are examples of these structures, which enable citizens to get involved in the planning and implementation of local development projects.

The country is also striving to create an environment conducive to innovation, with incubation centers and coworking spaces that enable young entrepreneurs to develop their skills and knowledge.

This is one of the focuses of Makesense Africa, which since 2014 has already supported more than 30,000 citizens and claims support for 1,000 projects through its incubator.

International interventions

The World Bank in Senegal has 22 national investment projects worth a total of $2.71 billion and nine regional operations to the tune of $390 million. As a French-speaking country, Senegal has remained linked to France and other French-speaking countries that are striving to intervene, for example the AFD (Agence française de développement), which is supporting the creation of ISEPs (Instituts supérieurs d'enseignement professionnel) that professionalize players in sectors such as agriculture, livestock and fisheries, agri-food, tourism, wildlife management, crafts and rural engineering.

Senegal can also count on the mobile phone to accelerate its development with 15.7 million subscribers. This medium is an asset for communicating even in landlocked areas.

However, despite the aid paid out, the consultants, the missions, the effect still seems modest.

We could again quote Leopold Sedar Sedar Senghor, who asserts

"The poem is accomplished only if it becomes song, word and music at the same time."

Senegal's learnability comes from its rich culture, its local traditions, its people's ability to dialogue. Senegal is one of the most stable countries in Africa political transitions are smooth. The art of dialogue and understanding is undoubtedly its greatest asset. It's a lesson from which some Western countries that sometimes lecture others could humbly draw inspiration.

Sources

Make sense Africa https://g.co/kgs/AXob3K

AFD. Boosting vocational training in Senegal https://www.afd.fr/fr/carte-des-projets/dynamiser-la-formation-professionnelle-au-senegal

Emplois Dakar. Future training in Senegal https://www.emploidakar.com/formations-davenir-au-senegal/

Senegal campus France. Vocational training https://www.senegal.campusfrance.org/les-formations-professionnelles

Xarala. Vocational training in Senegal https://www.xarala.co/blog/formations-professionnelles-au-senegal/amp/

Wikipedia. Senegal https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9n%C3%A9gal

Gaye, A. (2019). Entre éducation non formelle et informelle, l'apprentissage professionnel "traditionnel" au Sénégal: analyse des pratiques des maîtres d'apprentissage et de leurs impacts sur les apprentis (Doctoral dissertation, Université de Lille).

Niang, A. Y. (2020). The emergence of a new model of continuing education in Senegalese schools: conditions for emergence and conditions for success. Formation et profession, 28(2), 75-88.

When school moves home. Contours et enjeux du dispositif " Apprendre à la maison " au Sénégal

Jean-Alain Goudiaby In Education at the margins in times of pandemic (2022) https://www.decitre.fr/livres/l-education-aux-marges-en-temps-de-pandemie-9791095177357.html

Public policies and territorial dynamics of local development (1960-2015) in a context of transition: the case of Senegal Sambou Ndiaye ans Les Politiques Sociales 2017/2 (n° 3-4), pages 57 to 67

Orange. The mobile market in French-speaking Africa https://developer.orange.com/orange_explains/marche-mobile-afrique-francophone/

AFD. Understanding the dynamics of learning ecosystems in Africa https://www.afd.fr/fr/ressources/comprendre-la-dynamique-des-ecosystemes-apprenants-en-afrique

UCAD https://www.ucad.sn/

UNESCO. Community capacity building https://uil.unesco.org/fr/etude-de-cas/effective-practices-database-litbase-0/programme-renforcement-capacites-communautaires