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Education of Disadvantaged Children in OIC:

The Key to Escape from Poverty

88

Inspectorates can have their budgets reduced if they cannot justify the reasons of their under

performance.

Conclusion

Both the education administrative data and the DHS data demonstrated that Senegal has made

great strides over the past decade in terms of access to schooling by the general population but

also by poor children. Poverty remains a main determinant/barrier to further schooling but both

DHS data and poverty studies have shown that the extent of its influence has been slowly waning

in time. While the HOI and Shapley decomposition point to a lessening of inequalities over time,

vulnerability and inequalities between different regions of the country and different population

groups remain strong. In terms of gender parity, Senegal’s case can help ‘bust the myth’ of girls

being disadvantaged in Muslim-majority countries as the gender parity index is fairly equal and

slightly in favour of girls.

In line with global trends, the data analyses pointed to disparities in access to education linked to

income poverty, rural areas, geographical location, gender, disability, language and minority. Low

access in Senegal is also linked to deficiencies in learning processes, problems with the devolution

and decentralization processes, weak coordination between public/private and non-profit

sectors, inadequate budget efficiencies, uneven distribution of population, and religious

background in some of the districts with the lowest access to schooling.

The increasing access trends have been accompanied by a decline in the quality of education, with

worsening completion, repetition and drop-out rates. In most regions, teachers lack facilities such

as classrooms and textbooks which, combined with the low rate of educational supervision,

reinforces inequality in the education system. Public schools are no longer attractive despite their

greater numbers (and therefore greater accessibility).

The alignment of the PAQUET policies with the overall country strategy as well as its strategic

focuses on quality and improved governance results in relevant focus/reform goals given the

access to education challenges in the country. The pilots on modernization of the Daaras, and the

introduction of bilingual schools are hopefully going to be scaled up. As such it is important to

devise a clear implementation strategy for the policies and the scaling of successful programs as

well as create the fiscal space to mobilise more resources needed for the policy and program

implementation. This includes mobilising resources towards social protection schemes to

financially support the poorest households in sending their children to school.

Recommendations

Policies toaddress FailingSystems

Cultural adaptation, including Public consultations: One of the main challenges highlighted in the

report is the need for the integration of alternative models of education to respond to the strong

demand from the population for alternative models to the formal French model. As such, the

current reforms and any future policies aimed at addressing this challenge must include extensive

consultations with the population in order to understand their education demands. Since 80% of