Mauritania - History & Background, Constitutional & Legal Foundations, Secondary Education, Higher Education, Administration, Finance, & Educational Research - EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM, PREPRIMARY & PRIMARY EDUCATION
six language percent lasting
| BASIC DATA
|
| Official Country Name:
|
Islamic Republic of Mauritania
|
| Region:
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Africa
|
| Population:
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2,667,859
|
| Language(s):
|
Hasaniya Arabic, Pular, Soninke, Wolof, French
|
| Literacy Rate:
|
37.7%
|
Education in Mauritania is mandatory from ages 6 to 16. The school year runs from October to June. Primary and secondary education is divided into three quarters, the first one lasting 11 weeks and the remaining two lasting 13 weeks. Higher education is split into two six-month periods. The languages of instruction are both Arabic and French.
Primary education begins at age six and lasts for six years. General studies include arithmetic, science, and language. Upon successful graduation from Ecole Fondamentale, students are awarded a Certificat d'Etudes Primaires. Despite efforts to make primary education more accessible to girls, large disparities still remain among the sexes. Primary school enrollment reached 61 percent for males and 53 percent for females in 1997.
Additional Topics
Early public schools in Mauritania were established when the west African nation was colonized by the French. A particularly nomadic people, the Mauritanians quite often ignored these new schools and continued to send their children to the existing Islamic schools, which favored religious instruction based on the teaching of the Koran. Boys typically received seven years of education, beginning at…
After achieving independence in the mid-1960s, Mauritania began experimenting with ways to mold its educational system to the specific needs of its students.
Secondary education consists of three years of basic studies at a college.
The University of Nouakchott, established in 1981, offers higher education degrees in economics and law, arts and humanities, and science and technology.
The Ministry of Education, based in Nouakchott, oversees the educational policies and procedures of Mauritania.
Literacy rates in 1985—among the lowest in Sub-Saharan Africa at roughly 20 percent—prompted the government to examine ways to establish a more educated base of workers.
Primary school teachers are required to hold a Diplome de Fin d'Etudes.
A major issue facing Mauritanian education officials in the twenty-first century is the debate over the relevance of curriculum; many education officials in the late 1990s were calling for expanding basic studies to cover such topics as family education, nutrition, the arts, and manual labor. Other areas of concern are inadequate funding, coupled with the need for additional infrastructure, and th…
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