Education of Disadvantaged Children in OIC:
The Key to Escape from Poverty
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Daaras which are not considered part of the formal schooling system, thus leading to low access
to formal schooling (high numbers of out of school children) in those regions.
Nationalism and religion are reflected in the parental (and wider family) attitudes to schooling
with preference given to non-formal and informal schools such as Arabic ones and Daaras
(Koranic schools).
Therefore with a provision of formal education that does not meet the specific demands of local
populations, many children in the critical 5 regions attend Daaras where they only memorize the
Koran but they do not obtain adequate numeracy or literacy skills nor do they experience a proper
secondary school cycle. From the age of 7, children who are attending Daaras cannot also attend
primary school since these two are mutually exclusive. Hence children attending Daaras lose the
opportunity to become literate in French, a skill that they would obtain if they attend primary
schools. They will also not be able to enrol back into the formal French system and remain out of
school.
Culture. In the South, Ziguinchor and Kolda have larger share of Christian populations (while still
remaining a minority) thus parents are less interested in Daaras. The Muslim populations in the
South are culturally different than those in the 5 critical regions as there is less anti-colonialist
and nationalist sentiment and education is valued. Therefore there is a high demand for the
formal schools from both Christian and Muslims populations, which is met by a high supply of
schools, leading to high access rates (low rates of out of school children). The supply of schools is
due to government interventions but also a large number of NGO and international organisation
interventions as they focus on those regions. However, looking at PASEC results, higher access
does not translate into higher quality, with the Southern regions being the worst performers in
PASEC.
Gender: Different sources such as DHS, census and education administrative data give slightly
varying numbers of access to school and gender parity but across sources, the general trend is
that more girls attend primary school early on but starting in secondary school, the trends start
to revert, probably due to early marriage and increased demands for labour as the children are
older. In Senegal, there is as yet no reliable data on the number of mothers forced to leave school
due to pregnancy or early marriage. But these two causes also constitute factors of drop-out.
Child labour: According to UNICEF225, over 1 in 4 children aged 5-17 are engaged in child labour,
with child labour affecting disproportionately older children. The percentage of children (5-17
years) affected by child labour in 2014 varies from 6.6% in Dakar to 51.9% in Kaffrine226 . The
worst affected regions are thus Kaffrine (51.9%), Tambacounda (43.9%), Kaolack (40.6%) and
Kolda (36.4%). Child labour incidence is three times higher in rural areas (36.2% of 5-17 years
old227) than in urban areas (11.7%). It also affects boys disproportionatelymore than girls (35.8%
225 UNICEF (2016)”Livre des statistiques cles: Plus de 100 tableaux sur la situation des enfants au Senegal”
226 Table 105 in Unicef (2016)
227 Table 104, row for year 2014, Unicef (2016)