Arabic and religious education intends not to remain on the sidelines of the major educational project that Senegal says it wants to carry out. On 27 September, at the Cheikhoul Khadim University in Touba, the association of Arabic language inspectors organized a workshop aimed at formalizing their contribution to the process of reforming the national education system.
A workshop to clarify the terms of the debate
Before contributing, one must first agree on what is meant by “refoundation”. The work focused precisely on distinguishing between the notions of refoundation, innovation, revision and reform — terms often used interchangeably in official discourse, but whose content determines the scope of the expected changes. A questionnaire developed by the workshop’s scientific committee was submitted to the participating inspectors in order to collect and synthesize their proposals. The conclusions of this day are intended to formally document the participation of this body in the ongoing reflection.
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Cheikh Mokhtar Lo, Arabic language inspector at the Diourbel academy inspection office, recalled the activities already carried out at the national and regional levels by this body, emphasizing the importance of their involvement in this dynamic.
A plea for “endogenous” development
Professor Seydou Khouma, teacher-researcher at the Faculty of Sciences and Technologies of Education and Training at Cheikhoul Khadim University and Inspector General in charge of training in Arabic and religious education, set the tone. Judging the meeting “truly opportune,” he called for “rethinking the education system in order to achieve goals that allow for endogenous development, based on local spiritual and religious values.” A formulation that reflects a recurring tension in Senegalese educational debates: that between a curricular heritage largely inherited from the colonial period and a demand for broader recognition of knowledge derived from local and Islamic traditions.
What this workshop says — and does not say
The initiative is politically significant. It comes in a context where the new Senegalese authorities have placed the transformation of the educational system among their stated priorities. By positioning themselves as actors in this refoundation, inspectors of the Arabic language signal their willingness to influence the direction of reforms, particularly regarding the place that the future curriculum will grant to Arabic instruction and religious education.
But several questions remain unanswered. The communiqué specifies neither the timeline for the refoundation process, nor the decision-making bodies to which the workshop’s conclusions will be submitted. It is also unclear to what extent the contributions of this body will be integrated beyond the formal consultation. The notion of “local spiritual and religious values” as the foundation of endogenous development also deserves to be questioned: what trade-offs does this imply with the requirements of a curriculum open to science, technology, and a globalized economy? These tensions are not addressed in the reported discussions.
Finally, the workshop is held in Touba, the capital of Mouridism — a choice of venue that is far from incidental and immediately situates the approach within a powerful symbolic space, at the crossroads of the religious and the political.
Source: APS (Senegalese Press Agency), 27 September 2024.
