The start of the teaching of English in preschool and elementary schools has been effective since yesterday in the 59 IEF (Education and Training Inspectorates) in the country. An exercise, however, marked by a boycott by a group of teachers.
As planned by the Ministry of National Education, the teaching of English at elementary and preschool levels was official yesterday in public establishments. On the phone, Aissata Sall Cissé, the project manager at the Ministry of National Education, specifies that it is only in the experimental phase across the national territory and that “the main thing for the ministry was to start whatever the sample”.
“Teaching-learning in English started well yesterday, as planned, in the elementary cycle and in preschool. The ministry is awaiting information from the IEF to really see how many classes and the number of teachers who were affected on this first day of implementation of the project,” says Ms. Cissé.
She specifies that for implementation, the ministry had taken the lead by initiating training sessions for English teachers. Also, regarding educational resources, USB keys and guides were given to those concerned.
However, the exercise was marked during this first day by a boycott on the part of certain English teachers. They are demanding compensation for what they describe as excessive work in this educational project whose objective is to strengthen the language skills of learners from a young age. An exercise in the division Gathered as a collective, the English teachers, numbering 659 selected for this phase of experimentation, also hope that from next year they will benefit from a specialization in this discipline because being in the majority French masters. Visissiou Coréa who spoke on their behalf notes that “the overload of work in class with this exercise will impact their schedule”.
“Since the launch of the project, there is nothing official that has been done by the ministry. There is no specialization or compensation for overtime. A meeting was held on the issue recently without follow-up.
The project started on the basis of the promises. We want to be compensated this year and specialize from next year as English teachers and focus on teaching French,” Mr. Coréa said on the telephone.
-Evoking the requirements of English masters, Aissata Sall Cissé specifies that the supervision has done the essential and that he asks to start and continue the reflection. “I was surprised to see this reaction because during the training sessions, the teachers asked all the questions to which we provided answers. We asked them to start and continue the reflection because we cannot make promises on a whim. There are other teachers who are in other programs like national language teaching in the system and who are not asking for compensation,” she argued.
“They also demanded computers because indeed many of the resources available to them are educational, but it must be said that the minister is doing everything so that they have these machines,” notes Ms. Cissé.
Seydou Prosper SADIO
…good start to Matam
sweet – The deputy governor in charge of the development of the Matam region, Tafsir Baba Anne, yesterday officially launched the introduction of the language of Shakespeare in preschool and primary cycles in Ndouloumadji Dembe (commune of Nabadji Civol ). “This is a major innovation for the Senegalese education system,” appreciated the administrative authority. According to Mr. Anne, learning English from preschool and elementary school is a very good thing for children, especially since they have a fresh memory and enormous memorization capacity. Thus, he invites us to support this new measure to achieve the expected results. For the Academy Inspector (Ia) of Matam, Mamoudou Oumar Guèye, this is a great innovation in the education system. A system has been put in place. As a result, at the level of the Matam constituency, he said, 11 classes were chosen in each Inspectorate for Education and Training (Ief). There are 10 elementary classes and one preschool class. For the courses, 33 teachers were chosen in the Ia of Matam including 30 at the elementary level and 3 at the preschool.
Falel PAM (Correspondent)
