GON FIRES TEACHERS AS NIGERIEN SCHOOLS FAIL A

UNCLAS NIAMEY 000788 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT: FOR AF/W, BACHMAN E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PHUM SOCI KPAO NG SUBJECT: GON FIRES TEACHERS AS NIGERIEN SCHOOLS FAIL A SECOND TEST REF: NIAMEY 746 -------------- SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. Following the country's worst ever academic exam results (reftel),the Government of Niger's (GON) Council of Ministers announced on July 14 the firing without pension of 19 tenured high school teachers and the termination of one contract teacher, in connection with alleged fraud in the administration of the 2005 school exams. The GON also decided that all diplomas proven to have been conferred fraudulently would be revoked. While applauding the GON's overall anti-corruption efforts, Nigeriens have mixed feelings about the results of education exams this year, the role and sources of corruption in the educational sector, and the GON's decision of July 14. Once the dust settles, this year's exam results may lead to a vital national conversation on school reform. END SUMMARY -------------- DISTRESSFUL YET EXPLICABLE FAILURE -------------- ¶2. Nationwide, 11.93% of Nigerien 8th graders passed the Brevet d'Etudes du Premier Cycle (BEPC ) middle school leaving exam). This was the lowest passing rate ever recorded for the exam. Provisional results of the Baccalaurat BAC - high school leaving exam),which appeared this week, showed that High School seniors fared no better - approximately 15% passed. This rate is expected to rise to about 25% after the oral section is administered this week. NOTE: Students who did not pass the BAC may elect to take an oral component, through which many can accumulate the points necessary to pass the BAC as a whole. END NOTE While the population expressed deep concern over these results, the GON and the civil society &understood8 the situation in different ways. ¶3. For the Minister of Secondary and Higher Education Ousmane Galadima, this "catastrophic situation" was due to "our behavior as parents'...'we have instilled a culture of cheapness and mediocrity to these innocent young people." However, many Nigeriens attribute the situation not only to the students, performance, the teachers, lack of motivation, or rampant corruption, but also to certain GON policies: inflated grading and "social promotion," and the hiring of large numbers of under-qualified contract teachers. Teachers, unions and civil society groups decried what they called the GON's "double standards" in addressing the exam fraud issue. They believe that the GON's firing of the 19 teachers was illegal, and that solutions targeting only the public servants who took bribes - and not the influential private citizens who offered them - are unfair. Nigerien law, after all, punishes both bribe-givers and bribe-takers. Teachers, unions, with the support of the civil society, announced their intention of challenging the decision in the courts. -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶4. The fifteen-year decline in Niger's public education system has produced some particularly disquieting, and obvious, results of late. As noted reftel, the GON's successful attempts to control corruption in the exams process has exposed the full extent of the schools, failure, and occasioned some real soul searching by all parties. This process has been reinforced by this week's firings and weak BAC results. Still, the GON and the civil society differ over the solutions - most pointedly over the sources of corruption and the need for enhanced public investment in schools. A real solution to the problems faced by Niger's failing public schools would likely hue to a middle course - acknowledging that problems derive both from corrupters and corruptees; from a lack of public investment in education, and from a culture that increasingly holds up the model of the illiterate but wealthy trader rather than that of the well-educated civil servant or teacher as the symbol of success. END COMMENT ALLEN