Burkina Faso / Reform of the education and university system: Recipe by Dr. Moumouni Zoungrana

It felt like the lectures that Dr. Moumouni Zoungrana gave to his students of modern literature in the B amphitheater of the Joseph Ki-Zerbo University. The difference was that this time he was facing activists and sympathizers of FESCI BF, whose great mobilization stood out. Facing this group of students, the teacher and lecturer of oral literature, accompanied by a representative of the Ministry of National Education, a former representative of FESCI BF, dissected the theme of enlistment. “Education is the key that opens the door to development”, he said, welcoming the efforts of the current authorities to promote quality education. He pointed out that societies that value education are those that prioritize it over others, and then pointed out the difficulties facing the education and university system in Burkina Faso.

For teachers and lecturers of oral literature, the difficulties that undermine the field are many. He said that inadequate infrastructure is one of the serious obstacles in Burkina Faso’s universities. According to him, nearly 60,000 undergraduate graduates enter universities every year. If the number of students increases, the infrastructure will not necessarily be there. He said that another bottleneck is the lack of management personnel, even as he informed that the state recruits 100 doctors every year to curb this problem. The obsolescence of management tools and untimely student strikes are also obstacles to the development of the education and university system. He pointed out that this situation leads to a decline in success rates. But he admitted that in recent years, students have suspended their strikes in view of the situation in the country. This is a very good idea and he is happy.

Despite the difficulties, there are reasons to remain hopeful given the new dynamics initiated by the current authorities. “With them, we have seen remarkable changes,” he said. The president’s initiatives on quality education, the construction of new university campuses and universities constitute the authorities’ clear desire to seek an efficient education and university system. Development will only be real development if it is built on an efficient education system and a strong military, said the columnist for the News Echo program of the private television station BF1. “If you want to be a country that has influence in the world, you must have cutting-edge education and a strong military,” the teacher insisted in front of the jubilant students.

He wants to take a pragmatic approach to the problem. “Making everyone go to university is not a good solution,” he said. We need designers, he believes, but we can’t have them on such a large scale. For him, the state must create more professional training centers for other high school graduates and allow the “best” to go to university to become designers. “We must work to make the education system responsive to the concerns of our society,” he proposed while congratulating FESCI BF for organizing the congress.

At the end of the communication, he welcomed the consensus in the university community on continuing courses in August and September to eliminate delays.

Students raise concerns, authorities appease

After the first meeting, FESCI BF officials praised the quality of the presentation by Dr. Moumouni Zoungrana. They believe that the choice of the theme is related to the reality of how universities in Burkina Faso operate. “We noticed that the curricula of our universities do not correspond to our reality. That is why we chose this theme to challenge decision-makers so that they can review the curriculum to respond to our reality,” said Soumaïla Sawadogo, president of the organizing committee.

Professor Ali Sawadogo, the Minister’s Representative for Higher Education, took the opportunity to reassure that we are doing everything to find solutions to these problems. As the Representative and Director-General of Higher Education, he said there is a vision to reform the higher education system to meet the needs of our environment. “An important element in the Minister’s target contract is to reduce delays in universities. We have been working hard to make this a reality. We did a mid-term assessment and the trends are very good,” he concluded.

Likewise, Pierre Zangré, the ministerial deputy in charge of national education, insisted that efforts were being made to reverse the trend and improve the education system. He also congratulated the students for the relevance of the theme and their great mobilization.

The second theme is “Mitantism and union commitment in our universities and schools in the context of insecurity”. This theme was developed by Ali Augustin Pallo. The third theme is “What type of leadership is suitable for schools and universities in the context of the security crisis”, taught by leadership trainer Nan Gueu. Two candidates are in the running ahead of the election of the new National Secretary of FESCI BF. This election will be followed by a ceremony to confer an honor on the winner.

As a reminder, FESCI BF is a movement that fights for the moral and material interests of students in Burkina Faso.

Serge Fish Key

Lefaso.com