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SABABU: School project of Mamadou Diabate
(Burkina Faso / Austria)

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world" (Nelson Mandela)

Our goal is to give needy children an opportunity for education by establishing a new primary school in Bobo Dioulasso / Burkina Faso. Indeed, it is through education that the son of a farmer becomes a doctor or engineer, it is through education that the daughter of a cleaner becomes a teacher or university professor and it is through education that the son of an immigrant can become president of his adopted country.

Our school (for now with three classrooms) was inaugurated on the 14th September 2010 and now 75 children attend the first class and 75 children the second class. Special features of our school:

About the education in Burkina Faso

The education system in Burkina Faso corresponds - with a few minor changes and adjustments here and there - to that of France, has implications for the management of education at all levels (primary, secondary and higher education) and applies to all public and private educational institutions. In principle, the young people could enjoy the benefits of one of the best school systems in the world. But there are huge problems to solve:

The school system is very young. The foundations for a nationwide education system could only be laid after gaining independence in 1960. Therefore, the necessary infrastructure is still incomplete. (The Austrian school system was founded by empress Maria Theresa in 1774. She introduced the public schools and a 6 years long compulsory education.)

The literacy rate - the proportion of people over 14 who can read and write - is only about 22%. This to improve is a long-term task. (Austria passed the 90% mark only around 1930, some 150 years after Maria Theresa's decree.)

Schooling is in theory free and compulsory until the age of 16, but the government does not have sufficient resources to provide free primary education everywhere, and especially to provide the necessary infrastructure. The proportion of young people under 15 is, like in most African countries very high, about 46% of the total population. (In Austria it is about 15%; i.e. 85% of the population pay the costs of the education system and not only 54%, as in Burkina Faso.)

Only about 72% of the primary school-age children get enrolled and of those enrolled about 40% complete the primary school at all. Its ultimate cause is the low income of the families, the actual cost of school supplies, the school fees and the lack of infrastructure and teachers. Many families can only send one child, usually the oldest boy, to school. The other children have to earn money. Nevertheless, the classes are very big. The legal limit for a class is 65 students (in Austria 25), but in many rural areas, the classes are much larger because of lack of resources.

The language of instruction is, right from the first grade, French. Burkina Faso is, as almost all countries in Africa, a multi-ethnic state with a huge diversity of languages. Among the approximately 14 million inhabitants, we find representatives from nearly 70 ethnic groups. This diversity cries for a common language for state administration and education. (But why French? To prevent ethnic wars and keep connected to the achievements of the Western world, almost all countries in sub-Saharan Africa adopted the language of their former colonial master as official and instruction language.) It is evident that using a foreign language as language of instruction decreases the efficiency. Further, French is understood by only 15% of the population of Burkina Faso. So, most of the families can neither assist the child with the homework nor communicate with the teacher, because he often comes from a different linguistic region.