EPB

The Ecole Primaire Bilingue (EPB) offers solutions to the linguistic constraints facing basic education in the multilingual context of Burkina Faso. It involves the use of national languages to facilitate children's learning and improve their academic performance.

Bilingual elementary school are the second link in the multilingual educational continuum, which begins with pre-schools (Espaces d'éveil éducatif - 3 E) and ends with specific multilingual colleges (Collèges multilingues spécifiques - CMS), the 3rd level from 6th to 3rd grade.

Objectives 

• propose solutions to the linguistic constraints facing basic education in Burkina's multilingual context;
• to enable students to use and enhance their knowledge of a national language, and to use their literacy skills in this language to train themselves;
• acquire modern knowledge and learn French (international language and official language of Burkina Faso);
• to associate the act of learning with production activities in order to prepare children to become conscious and motivated actors of local, regional and national development;
• Reconciling the school with the environment by integrating positive local cultural values and involving the surrounding community;
• Promote national languages and literacy in these languages and minimize school drop-outs.

Conditions for the implementation of the approach

• Community ask for the implementation of the approach ;
• Prospecting and social negotiation missions ;
• Participation of the beneficiary community in the implementation of activities specific to bilingual education, such as indigenous knowledge, production and cultural activities.

Implementation process

• Application to open a bilingual school or to transform a traditional monolingual school into a bilingual school;
• Two missions of prospecting and social negotiation with the requesting population by all the MENAPLN (Ministry of National Education, Alphabetisation and Promotion of National Languages) actors concerned, from the technical directions to the deconcentrated technical structures and the resource persons;
• Establishment of a Management Comittee (COGES) and identification of resource persons for the implementation of specific activities;
• Training for teachers assigned by the school administration ;
• Class opens the following school year ;
• Follow-up and advice specific to EPB, taking into account bilingualism, production activities, cultural animation, community participation;
• Annual capacity building for the teacher specific for the class they are teaching.

Stakeholders in the implementation

• Trained teachers of bilingual classes;
• Local resource persons identified for the specifics of bi-/plurilingal education;
• The head of the basic education district to which the EPB belongs;
• Leading the multilingual education continuum ;
• Solidar Suisse more specifically for technical support to the MENAPLN and more directly for the bilingual schools run by the Catholic Church in collaboration with the Secrétariat national de l'éducation catholique (SNEC).

Direct beneficiaries

• School-age children whose parents have opted for a bilingual French/national language education for their children;
• EPB teachers;
• Pedagogical supervisors who are trained in the approach.

Indirect beneficiaries

• Parents and the entire local educational community;
• MENAPLN central, technical and deconcentrated structures concerned;
• The National Secretariat for Catholic Education (SNEC).
• National training institutes for educational staff ;
• Ecole normale supérieure (ENS);
• The world of linguistic and educational science researchers.

Advantages :

• Reducing schooling time by one year;
• The link between teaching, production and culture ;
• Students' internal and external performance;
• Bilingual teaching promotes a better understanding of the content of subjects taught in both national languages and French;
• Bilingual education makes it possible to associate the act of learning with the act of production activities, which prepares children to become actors in local, regional and national development later on;
• Pupils from bilingual schools are able to continue their secondary education at Collèges d'Enseignement Général (CEG) or Collèges Multilingues Spécifiques (CMS), and later at university;
• Bilingual education, with the integration of local culture into teaching, enables students to develop cultural skills that can be used in working life;
• Bilingual education contributes to the enhancement of national languages.