On Thursday, as promised, we (me, Neal, Baïssou, Robert, and Voldo) went to school to survey some of the students who will be using our library. When we first arrived in the morning, half of the 9th grade and all of the 7th grade weren't around; there isn't a teacher available for that block, so they don't have class. We came back in the afternoon got to speak with the missing 9th graders, but the 7th graders still weren't in class. The picture below is of this second group of 9th graders, who were hugely amused by my asking permission to take their photo in Bambara and very enthusiastic about the idea of the photo. Our arrival in the school courtyard caused quite a stir amongst the elementary schoolers whose classes are downstairs, but the students we surveyed were considerably calmer, though still very interested. They stood up respectfully as we entered the classroom with their principal, but the students in the back were craning their necks to see what was going on. We met the English teacher, the French teacher, and the Physics teacher (in Mali, teachers move from class to class while students stay put), all of whom seemed competent and quite interested in the library as well.
The answers revealed many interesting things. To start with the bad news, almost all of the students made major errors in the simple French sentences they were writing, including misspelling basic words and incorrectly conjugating the verb “to be.” The effects of the DEF exam were also visible in that almost all of the 8th graders were the age we expect 8th graders to be (between 12 and 14) but in the 9th grade class there were many 16 and 17-year-olds and even a couple older students. These are almost certainly students who failed the DEF, possibly multiple times, and are now repeating the 9th grade. Even if they manage to pass the DEF this time around, many are too old for the government to place them in high schools and so will most likely stop going to school.
On the positive side, the gender balance in all three of the classes was almost exactly 50/50, though this too is consistent with the observation that many girls stop going to school after the DEF. Students were very interested in the library, especially in the idea of having access to textbooks and computers. Though government issued textbooks exist and are the basis for all curriculum in almost all Malian schools, most children never see the book themselves, or have to borrow a copy in order to do their homework. The 9th graders were overwhelmingly interested in cours privés in Math and Science, while the 8th graders had more diverse interests over all, even suggesting additional subjects like history and music. Almost no one understood the question about how they would improve their education, but this question nonetheless yielded interesting results. Among the answers from those who did understand the question were “leave to study in France,” “study in the US,” “do more sports,” “have all of my text books available,” “change the function of my brain” and “be around people who challenge me.” Many students answered the question by telling us what they want to do professionally which included soccer player, nurse, “a doctor to care for the children of Mali,” lawyer, police officer, soldier, Minister for the Promotion of Women and Children, economist, and (this from one of the best writers in the class) actress in Indian soap operas. I find their ambition inspiring, and can't wait to have more conversations with these and other students in the months ahead. We'll keep you updated on what we learn, and we hope that you will be hearing directly from them in the coming weeks. We plan on asking the two 9th graders who said they want to be journalists if they'd like to write something about themselves, their classmates, their school, or their neighborhood for this blog. We'll see what happens!
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