Joint ILO/UNESCO Committee of Experts on the Application of the Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers - Report

Part 6

D. Allegation received from the Single and Democratic Teachers Union of Senegal (SUDES)

Background

1. By letter of 28 August 1995 addressed to the Director General of the ILO, the Single and Democratic Teachers Union of Senegal (SUDES) submitted allegations concerning the non- observance of the Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers by the Government of Senegal with respect to guiding principles, educational objectives and policies, employment and career, and social security. The parts of the communication relating to the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 (No. 105), and the Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention, 1958 (No. 111), were referred to the Governing Body of the ILO for a decision on their receivability, and eventual examination by the relevant supervisory bodies of the ILO.

2. At the request of the Joint Committee, SUDES sent detailed additional information by letter dated 5 September 1996. The allegation was submitted to the Government of Senegal for its observations by letter of 25 April 1997. The t.ovemment presented detailed observations and supporting information by letter of 5 June 1997 These were in turn sent to SUDES for its additional comments, which were transmitted by letter and facsimile dated 27 June 1997. The Government was invited to make its final comments on the SUDES observations, and these were sent by letter of 17 July 1997.

Substance of the allegation

3. SUDES has complained that the Government of Senegal launched an Education Volunteers Project (PVE) in 1995 with the aim of recruiting, training and appointing up to 1,200 young men and women between the age of 18 and 35 each year for four years to serve in effect as teachers in schools throughout the country. The Government's stated purpose with the launch of this project was to reopen over 500 classes that have been closed because no teacher is available, to halt the decline in the school enrolment rate, achieving a 65% enrolment rate by 1998 in line with basic education objectives, and to campaign against unemployment and under-employment of young people. The young people must have a diploma equal to or above that of the lower secondary school-leaving diploma (BFEM), provide a medical certificate proving physical aptitude to teach and other identity papers, pass the written and oral selection tests controlling admission to the programme, and undergo three months of pedagogical training. Once hired, the "volunteers" are to receive a monthly "scholarship" of 50,000 CFA francs (compared to a monthly salary of 110,000 CFA francs of a regular starting teacher) and free housing at their place of service. After four years of service, a volunteer may be engaged as an employee of the state, of a local authority or of the private sector.

4. Among the points raised by SUDES in its supporting documentation are the following:

(a) the training certificate issued to volunteers provides no indication of the amount of training nor of its evaluation; the list is equivalent normally to four years of proper teachers' education in a regional training college;

(b) under the Government decree establishing the project volunteers are not permitted the basic human right to freedom of association and to organize as a trade union, and may be dismissed if they do not respect the decree's provisions;

(c) the schools' executive which certifies fitness of volunteers for duty may ignore the medical certificate required of all volunteers;

(d) volunteers perform the same work as regular teachers and may even be required to teach double-shift classes without the additional compensation which regular teachers receive,

(e) the Government decree stipulates that neither the State nor the project provides social security coverage, but the volunteers are obliged to join a mutual benefit society, on pain of dismissal.

5. It is furthermore alleged that the Government has at no time involved the teachers' organizations in planning for the project. When invited to a seminar on ministerial policy, the teachers' unions unanimously boycotted the discussion on the volunteers project, an action which they considered would accelerate deterioration in education and training quality by undermining the teaching profession and encouraging the spread of precarious employment in the public sector. Faced with teachers' opposition to the project, the Government nevertheless proceeded with the biased selection of volunteers based on party-political lines.

6. The Government's actions disregard the Recommendation by:

(a) offering a salary just above the guaranteed minimum wage, creating an image of poor teachers liable to be exposed to corruption and other indignities

(b) showing its concern only for quantity, not quality in education.

(c) creating more job insecurity.in the teaching profession;

(d) ignoring provisions on consultation with teachers' organizations; and

(e) not respecting provisions on social security.

An extensive list of supporting documents was also provided.

7. In its initial observations, the Government of Senegal does not contest the points concerning the establishment of the project of education volunteers, nor its objectives. The Government underlines that commitments made at the Jomtien Conference on Education for All (1990) to provide education for everyone by 2000 oblige it to make agonizing choices and adopt alternative strategies at a time of major constraints due to a difficult economic situation. The choices are all the more stark in relation to continued rapid population growth and the even greater disparities between regions and by gender in the context of falling enrolment ratios - 20 of 41 educational districts have a gross enrolment ratio lower than the national average, with the rates even lower for girls.

8. At the last nationwide consultation on education and training in 1991 involving all stakeholders, a consensus was reached that, given the enormous tasks imposed on education and the lack of sufficient resources to provide universal education, parents, teachers, academics and employers (both the State and private employers) would have to be mobilized to support schools. During discussions between the Government and teachers' unions in 1994, it was unanimously agreed that alternative solutions were needed to meet staff shortages. The efforts by various partners - parents and local communities who build and equip 700-800 classes per year, teachers who work in multi-grade and double-shift classes, development partners who have undertaken to set up and equip 3500 classes by 1998, the State, which already allocates 30% of its budget to education, and the efforts of young people from other countries engaged in voluntary service - provided the context within which the Government felt obliged to launch the education volunteers project.

9. The Government also contests the allegation of its refusal to consult over the project. It had met the teachers' unions in June 1995 to present the project and provide information before making it public. The teachers' unions then announced their opposition to the project without providing an alternative, and refused to participate in a further seminar to discuss it in detail. The Government contends that it did not refuse to involve the teachers' unions in the study; rather they chose to boycott discussions. Moreover, public opinion has strongly supported the project, and more than double the usual number of candidates who sit for primary school teachers' exams were candidates for the project. These were overwhelmingly (87%) young people with a baccalaureate or university level students who could hardly impair the quality of education and training as charged by SUDES. Furthermore, the fact that the written tests for project candidates were administered in three quarters of the educational districts means that not all teachers adhered to the boycott announced by the unions.

10. The charge of bias in the selection process is far from the truth according to the Government. The volunteers were not selected by the Ministry as usual, but in a decentralized operation by fully autonomous panels under the inspectorate's supervision. The panels were composed of teachers, representatives of teachers' unions, parents' associations, administrative authorities, and observers from the inspectorate and the Ministry. The testing and subsequent selection were carried out in accordance with strict criteria and transparency.

11. Among other facts in support of its observations the Government notes that:

- because it holds the teaching profession in such high esteem, the volunteers cannot join the profession before they have served in effect a four-year apprenticeship;

- the project has quality objectives in the areas of curricula, interaction between the school and local environments, and continual training of teachers which have benefitted the volunteers and the programmes and methods of child-centred schools;

- the training module incorporates language and adult education facilities and techniques enabling volunteers to help educate people in the rural environments; the modules have been extensively prepared by a working party and reviewed after the first year of the project;

- volunteer training is not very different in length from primary school teacher training (EFIs), and the relative success of education volunteers compared to other teachers at professional examinations, after one year's training, demonstrates the high level of training standards;

- there are few alternatives for making up teacher shortages since a recent audit revealed that the possibilities for re-engagement of unemployed teachers or redeployment of serving teachers were very limited. In any case, budgetary constraints have prevented the Government from meeting its commitment to recruit 700 new teachers per year, although the exceptional step of creating this volunteer project is in no way intended to substitute for regular recruitment of teachers;

- education volunteers do not enjoy trade union rights because they are not salaried workers, but in fact this situation is not new, since trainee teachers have never been allowed to join trade unions but have always set up associations in conformity with their status; education volunteers have set up their own association (AYES) with branches in all educational districts;

- education volunteers, like trainee teachers, may be dismissed because of infirmities which are incompatible with teaching, even though they have provided a medical certificate;

- education inspectors have been asked not to assign education volunteers to two-shift classes while awaiting a solution for the problem of compensation;

- the allegations concerning social security are misinterpretations of the project's texts which provide protection against accidents through self-administered mutual assurance associations, with contributions paid for by development partners or the Government.

12. In conclusion, faced with the constraints listed above, and taking account of the guarantees to protect the interests of education and teachers built into the project, the Government felt that it had no choice but to take this exceptional step, given the prospects that hundreds of classes would have closed otherwise, depriving 75,000 children of their rights to education. It remained limited in time - four years - and the Government was still open to discussions with the teachers' unions to improve the project or develop better alternatives.

13. The necessity of maintaining the volunteers to prevent class closures has led the Government to commission a study starting in May 1997 and financed by the World Bank, to consider the possibility of:

- a permanent body of education volunteers in the framework of a national civilian service;

- terms for creating a special permanent category of contract teachers benefiting from a career structure and whose financial compensation takes account of budgetary constraints;

- finding better ways of integrating the volunteers in the teaching profession.

14. In its subsequent observations, SUDES challenges the Government's assertions on the following points:

- training: there is a lack of clarity over the end-of-training certificate or diploma. The training modules are pointless if they do not lead final evaluation, confirmed by diploma, which measures the extent to which the coursework of the trainee is tailored to future teaching requirements. In addition, when touting the high results of the education volunteers in passing formal exams, no mention is made of the fact that a teacher's pedagogical skills have never been a function merely of their university degrees;

- entry into the profession/careers: the Government's approach to criteria for entry into employment in the volunteers project by way of a valid medical examination which it expressly downplays in some cases is an invitation to abuse and patronage. Moreover, there is absolutely no consensus within Senegal on the status - state official, civil servant - or on the type of career for education volunteers, and contrary to the Government's contentions, no regulations or laws to this effect;

- conditions of employment: on the one hand the Government's statements and actions treat education volunteers as good teachers who finish with a training certificate, and have the same teaching load and professional obligations as their other colleagues, yet on the other hand are denied the same trade union rights. Furthermore, there is not even a professional order which instructs inspectors to withhold volunteers from double-shift classes, and in schools with only such classes, the inspectors have no choice but to permit these practices;

- Medical benefits/social security: the teens of the mutual benefits fund are very clear in terms of compulsory membership for volunteers and the risks of dismissal for misconduct, including trade union membership, and the State's refusal to pay social security contributions, in contrast to the Government's statements. In addition, no legal text exists stipulating that health Care is available to volunteers or their children through public medical services.

15. In sum, SUDES contends that the education volunteers approach drains the ILO/UNESCO Recommendation of much of its substance with regard to high standards for teacher preparation and other matters. The drop in school enrolment ratios can be explained as much by the insufficicnt resources allocated to education in Senegal in contrast to extravagant Government expenditures on ministerial prerogatives. There has also been an irrational use of existing staff, inasmuch as the most recent survey revealed that more than 2000 primary-level teachers were not assigned to the functions for which they were trained. The desirable goal of higher enrolments ratios must still not allow diminished respect for the right to work as well as less rigorous teacher training standards and recruitment. SUDES regrets that despite a protocol signed between the teachers' unions and the Government in May 1997. shortly thereafter the Government announced a commissioned study on the volunteers programme funded by the World Bank.

16. In its final observation, the Government makes the following points:

- Education policy/consultation: in February 1996 a meeting was organized by the Government to examine the conclusions of the first study on the weak and strong points of the volunteers project in order to identify strategies for improving it. During the meeting, a workshop took place on the strengths and weaknesses of initial training, in which five principal teachers' unions participated; only SUDES refused to participate. The Government could hardly be accused of failing to associate the teachers' unions in the elaboration of educational policy.

- training: an evaluation study financed by the World Bank which examined the examination and performance results of 150 volunteers and 150 non-volunteer teachers had produced satisfying results with regard to the fommer: the group of volunteers under study had performed as well or better than the regular teachers on four of the six evaluation or performance criteria, and nearly as well on the other two. In addition, training continued for volunteers throughout the period of their apprenticeship in the form of a continual training session of 15 days per year:

- entry into the profession: the Government has followed a very innovative and open procedure in naming representatives of various stakeholders to the projects' selection panels, and no one, including the media and teachers' unions presents in all districts. has ever made charges of manipulation of the process in the form of cronyism. A recent incident alleged to bc one of these Gases related in fact to candidates coming from outside the district, and in any case the responsibility for the selection process is in the hands of the district educational authorities (academie). The Government rejects the accusation that aptitude entena applied in addition to the required medical certificate constitute an undermining of independent medical ccrtification since the latter does not really address the question of physical aptitude to teach. It also detends the priority accorded to women candidates (assuming equal qualifications) as a part of its desire to extend greater access to girls in rural areas through the cngagement of female volunteers as role models;

- employment conditions career development: the Government re-emphasized that a distinction was made between the status of the volunteers and that of officials or civil servants in no matter which country, and that the volunteers project constituted a provisional response to the problem of broadening and deepening access to education taking account of the specificities of

Senegal. As to their future status and careers, it was unimaginable that they should be dismissed after four years of service, and their classes closed; the second study on future alternatives would permit the identification of a career strategy for these volunteers in order to continue development of the education sector;

medical facilities/social security: the Government reiterates its position on the voluntary and self- administered nature of the mutual benefits fund, and indicates that since the interventions of the President of the fund, public hospitals in all regions now treat volunteers:

trade union rights: the right to "organize in an association" is not denied to volunteers. and a volunteer has never been dismissed because of their ideas or choices.

17. The Government concludes by reiterating its budgetary constraints since it is already spending 30% on education, while it must find solutions to large-scale problems related to expansion of the education system. The conclusion of the recent joint commission (Government and teachers' unions) which surveyed the staffing possibilities to which SUDES referred would be an important element in that search for solutions. The Government requests advice as to whether it can make available to the media the observations of both parties for the benefits of the public. It furthermore suggests that if the dispute cannot be resolved, an investigative commission of inquiry be sent to Senegal to look into the matter