schools in algeria

                                                Algerian schools launch sweeping IT education plan

January 23, 2009 -- Information technology and computer skills will soon reach a new level in Algerian schools. The government plans to distribute computers to every school in the country and expects teachers and students to use them in nearly all academic fields of study, Education Minister Boubekeur Benbouzid told legislators on January 15th.

A national conference will be held in the next few months to implement the ICT strategy first proposed by the National Institute for Educational Research. The initial roll-out covers 1,600 high schools and 2,000 middle schools. By the end of 2009, at least 5,000 middle schools will be fully equipped with computers.

The government has already allocated the budget for the ambitious plan, Benbouzid said.

The use of IT in the Algerian education system has been limited to administrative services. Within the last few years, however, the plan to incorporate computers into the classroom began to gain currency.

"The idea at the start was to set up an IT suite in every high school and college, but experience has shown that would not be enough, so the government decided to give them a second suite. This plan was later broadened to include primary schools. The ultimate aim was to use the computer as a tool for teaching all subjects," explained Tahar Boumediene, who leads the centre for the supply and maintenance of teaching equipment (CAMEMD).

Since 2006, when the programme was accelerated, 80% of high schools and 20% of middle schools have been wired, Boumediene told Magharebia, adding that "other calls for tender will follow to acquire around 4,000 IT suites".

Falling prices have proven advantageous to Algeria's ICT initiative. "We started with an allocation of around 2m dinars per school, which is 16 computers per structure. The cost of the equipment has halved," he noted.

In September of last year, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika asked the government to make new communication technologies and computer education available at all levels of the nation's education system, including primary schools.

The goal is highly ambitious, given the size of the sector. Algerian schools took in more than 8 million pupils at the start of this school year, the number of school establishments has risen to nearly 25,000 and the education sector currently employs more than a half-million workers.

The new plan to computerise schools also requires skilled instructors and teachers to keep the operation running. For now, Algeria lacks the trained personnel needed to reach the nation's educational objectives.

Therefore, the government has ordered school principals and teachers to go through computer training programmes and, in turn, educate their students. By the end of January, all schools must set up training programmes of at least 30 hours, which staff members will be obliged to take outside normal work hours.

"In some schools, it has gone very well, because there has been goodwill on the part of teachers, establishment heads and pupils. In others, it's going less well. Some have a fear of the new," Boumediene added.

O. Haciba, who teaches mathematics in a high school in Bab El Oued (Algiers), makes no secret of her irritation in the face of decisions which come "from on high".

"Teachers are left in the dark. We don’t know exactly where this is leading or the concrete pedagogical content of this project." For this teacher and trade union member, the plan must do more than maintain the current scenario, "where pupils simply use computers to copy documents from the Internet".

Despite the challenges posed by the plan to make IT literacy universal, education sector officials are bolstered by results and optimistic about the future. "The number of computers per school is much higher than in Morocco and Tunisia," Boumediene told Magharebia.

"Our hope," he added, "is to equip every pupil with a computer".

                   En vue d’accélérer le processus des réformes du système éducatif et de combler les lacunes constatées :
                                                      1 000 inspecteurs supplémentaires de l’enseignement pour cette année

Mardi 6 Janvier 2009 -- Lors des travaux d’une journée de formation et d’information autour de la fonction d’inspecteur pédagogique, laquelle s’est déroulée hier au lycée Hassiba Ben Bouali, à Kouba, en présence des inspecteurs des wilayas d’Alger et de Boumerdès, M. Boubekeur Benbouzid, ministre de l’Education nationale, a indiqué que le nombre des inspecteurs de l’enseignement au niveau national, aujourd’hui égal à 3 300, connaîtra avant la fin de l’année en cours une hausse de 1 000 inspecteurs, ce qui portera le total de ces derniers à 4 300. Tout en rappelant que les inspecteurs ont toujours été associés à tous les grands dossiers débattus par le ministère de l’Education (comité de l’orientation et des programmes, livres…), le premier responsable du secteur de l’éducation dans notre pays justifiera la mesure inhérente à l’augmentation du nombre des inspecteurs par le fait qu’à l’heure actuelle il n’y a parfois qu’un seul inspecteur (dans une matière donnée) qui s’occupe des enseignants de 2 wilayas, «et c’est donc dans un souci de méthodologie et d’efficacité que nous avons décidé de revoir le nombre des inspecteurs à la hausse», argumentera M. Benbouzid.

Annonçant que le taux de déperdition scolaire a atteint 7% lors du premier trimestre de cette année, le ministre de l’Education nationale insistera pour dire que les inspecteurs de l’enseignement, en raison du travail qu’ils accomplissent sur le terrain (observation et orientation) ont un très grand rôle à jouer pour atténuer les proportions du phénomène de la déperdition scolaire. «La déperdition scolaire possède deux aspects. L’un pédagogique, l’autre social. Les facteurs pouvant accentuer la déperdition scolaire (inexistence de transport scolaire, absence de cantines…) doivent être éradiqués si l’on veut réellement lutter contre ce phénomène», martèlera le ministre, ajoutant qu’il faudrait un certain temps pour que les fruits de la réforme de l’éducation, entamée depuis cinq ans, soient récoltés. Parlant des objectifs de son département, le ministre de l’Education nationale indiquera que tout sera fait pour que 90% des élèves qui entrent en 1re année primaire puissent atteindre la 4ème année du cycle moyen.

Par ailleurs, M. Benbouzid informera l’assistance que son ministère accorde une importance capitale à la dotation des établissements scolaires en outil informatique. «Il est inconcevable qu’à l’ère des technologies nouvelles nos élèves continuent à utiliser des moyens désuets dans leur apprentissage. Les sciences avancent à une grande vitesse et nous n’avons d’autre alternative que d’être à la page», fera-t-il remarquer. Au sujet des efforts que son département compte déployer à l’adresse des inspecteurs, le ministre de l’Education nationale promettra à ces derniers qu’ils auront, avec le concours de l’Office des œuvres sociales, un micro-portable. «Afin d’assurer le volet formation continue, le ministère vous paiera la connexion Internet. Il est vital de vous perfectionner et cela ne pourra que se répercuter positivement sur le niveau de l’enseignement dans notre pays», conclura le ministre de l’Education.

                                               Algeria to offer computer classes in schools

January 6, 2009 -- Algeria plans to create 1000 new jobs for university graduates to teach computer skills as an independent class at primary and high school levels starting in the second trimester of 2009, Education Minister Abou Bekr Benbouzid announced Monday (January 5th) in Algiers. In addition, the education ministry "will provide every high school with two computer laboratories" and every primary school with 10 computers, Echorouk quoted Benbouzid as saying.
 

A Global Brand Journeys to Algeria
Lycee Pasteur, a high school in Algeria where USC College professor Laurie Brand found old textbooks
Photo/Laurie Brand
By Susan Andrews on January 5, 2010 7:36 AM

“Think of me as a kind of machine that was going through, photographing pages and pages of books, seeing titles and taking pictures because they looked good, but not having much time to digest their meaning or significance,” said Laurie Brand, the Robert Grandford Wright Professor and professor of international relations at USC College.

Brand’s description sums up her trip to Algeria, which was intense, hectic and yet productive by any measure. The four-week research journey was aimed at locating primary source material for her research on the Algerian national narrative. The trip followed a similar “mining for information” mission she completed in Jordan last summer. She also will conduct research in Egypt and Lebanon as part of her two-year Carnegie Fellowship on nationalism and religion in official narratives.

Brand selected Algeria’s capital (Algiers) and Oran (its second largest city), a four- to five-hour drive apart along the coast, as her research destinations.

Two years ago, she had visited Algeria knowing that she would return later to conduct research. While there, she made connections with CEMA (Centre d’Etudes Maghrébine en Algérie), the American center in Oran, and CRASC (Centre de recherche en anthropologie sociale et culturelle), an Algerian center.

As is oft the case with “best laid plans,” Brand had to improvise after arriving. Having been told that the American center had a collection of old textbooks, she was surprised to find that most of its holdings were currently used school books, copies of which the center’s director already had sent to her as preparation for her fieldwork.

To locate older textbooks, contacts in Oran suggested that she visit several key secondary schools. While delighted to find textbooks in the library of one such high school in Oran, she was quickly informed by the school’s director that before she would be allowed to work on the books, she needed to obtain written permission from the educational directorate in Oran (known as l’Académie). The pursuit of the letter consumed a full week, which altered her timetable, leaving her only three weeks to conduct the bulk of the research.

While waiting for the letter to materialize, a resourceful Brand looked under every rock to uncover useful information.

In a junior high school in Oran, she was thrilled to meet a principal who brought eight old Islamic and civic education textbooks from home that her own children had used in the 1990s. That was an interesting and surprising find.

“Textbooks in Jordan do not combine religion and civics as they do in Algeria,” Brand said. “I am not sure, but I would venture that this is because of the small but significant Christian population in Jordan, whereas in Algeria today, Algerian means Muslim almost by definition.”

Sitting in cramped and sometimes poorly lit rooms with no air conditioning, Brand slogged through textbook after textbook. “I also went to the archives in Oran, where I reviewed old bound newspapers, tracked important speeches and read a tremendous amount of background material,” Brand said. “The high school libraries were usually one- or two-room affairs. I put my camera on a stand and went to work. Fortunately, I was permitted to use my camera in the archives as well.”

With limited time to conduct the fieldwork, she felt very fortunate to have been able to access copies of relevant laws and decrees before arriving, thanks to the fact that the Official Gazette, the Algerian version of the Federal Register, is now available online. “That saved me a huge amount of time.”

In all, she took some 3,000 photos of textbooks and published studies regarding curriculum development, history writing and national identity in Algeria.

“There are more academics in Algeria than in Jordan who work on questions centering on the evolution of the school system,” she said. “There is also far more published material on questions relating to the writing and rewriting of national history.”

According to Brand, “Algerians today are very concerned with writing that centers on their past.

“The deep concern Algerians have with how their history is written owes in no small measure to the fact that for years it was France — the former colonizing power — and its scholars and former colonial administrators that produced most historical ‘knowledge’ about the country. There is a strong desire to reexamine the assumptions and conclusions of existing works and to assert sovereignty over what is still a very contested narrative, despite state attempts to enforce a single story line.

“While I was there, two major figures died who had not written memoirs. In response, several newspaper articles lamented the loss, not only of men who had played an important role in the country’s independence struggle, but of the piece of history each represented which may never be fully captured or understood.”

Brand’s trip included one delightful moment of serendipity.

“One day, after finishing the bulk of my research work in Oran, I took a day trip to Mostaghanem, a coastal city about an hour from Oran, which included a visit to the shrine of a Muslim saint, Sidi Lakhdar Ben Khluf. It just so happened that my trip coincided with the saint’s annual celebration day, or wa`idah. As someone interested in the relationship between religion and nationalism, it was fascinating for me to see Algerian flags flying prominently across the courtyard of this religious shrine. The interconnection between religion and nationalism could not have been more clearly illustrated.”

“The trip was intense and very challenging. But it worked out in the end, and now I have a mountain of material to read through,” Brand said. “I can’t wait to get started.”