Global Leadership Training Programme in Africa 20142017
Activity Report of Field Research

Challenges of promoting early childhood education in a rural area of Senegal: A case studyof village M
Noriko HIDAKA1

I.

Summary<English summary>

The purpose of this study is to clarify challenges of promoting early childhood education in a rural area of
Senegal by using a qualitative method. To pursue this purpose, a researcher conducted fieldwork in Senegal
from August 19 to October 14, 2017.
Nowadays, expanding Early Childhood Education (ECE) is recognized as one of the most important goals
for the international society. It is because that international organizations and many governments have paid
attention to ECE more than ever since Early Childhood Education (ECE) expansion was included into oneof the global education goals at the World Conference on Education held in Thailand in 1990. They consider
that it will help to promote every aspect of the development of human beings because ECE has revealed
not only its educational but also the social and economic effectives. In addition, since the ECE works more
effectively with people who are under less preferable environment, expanding ECE is an urgent task to acorrect disparity in the world (Waikert, 2015; Hamano and Miwa, 2012). However, few kinds of researchconcern with ECE in developing countries, especially in Africa. Therefore, it is difficult to know what ishappening in the field, but some literature points out that one of the main reasons for the stagnation of ECE
expansion is that the priority order of ECE is lower than other areas of educations in developing countries.
Because of this situation, ECE in developing countries became too expensive and inconvenient to accessespecially for low-income families those who are living in rural area (UNESCO, 2007; UNESCO, 2015).
In Senegal, however, ECE became one of the national priorities in 2000, and after that, the government
made a lot of efforts to expand ECE. In particular, since there was a big disparity between urban and rural
areas, the national policy to expand ECE especially for the rural area was set. As part of the policy, a new
type of ECE center named la Case des Tout-Petits (CTP) was created. CTP is a community-based ECE
center with three functions of education, nutrition and health and they are mostly established in a rural areaand suburb. The main CTP characteristic is a quality education with a low fee compared with other typesof ECE centers. Thanks to this policy, the disparity between urban and rural areas has been much decreased.
For example, in 2002, there were 428 centers in the urban area, while 41 centers in the rural area. In 2013,
however, the disparity of the number of ECE center was decreased to 1.470 in the urban and 1.150 in therural. Nevertheless, the disparity of enrollment ratio didn’t improve, such as 1.9% in the urban and 0.6% in
the rural in 2002 while 19.8% in the urban and 5.8% in the rural in 2013. According to this reality, we can
2nd year Master’s degree student, Graduate school for international development and cooperation, Hiroshima university, Japan,
Host Ubiversity: Cheikh Anta Diop University, Senegal, August 19 – October 14, 2017.
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imagine that accessibility and economic reason are not the only cause for the stagnation of ECE expansion
in developing countries. In fact, it is said that the idea or the way of parenting varies widely by culture toculture (Harkness et al., 2013) and a content provided in ECE center has a strong influence on a judgmentof parents whether they send a child to ECE center or not (Kadomatsu, 2016). Therefore, we have to knowwhat kind of contents do parents expect from ECE center and how do ECE center respond to their demands.
Based on these reasons, a researcher conducted fieldwork which includes document collection andinterview to the people involved in ECE, parents, and educators.
<Japanese summary>
本研究の目的は、セネガル農村部における幼児教育普及の課題を質的調査によって明らかにすることである。この目的を追求するために、筆者は 2017 年 8 月 19 日から 10 月 14 日までセネガルにおいて、文献収集と幼児教育関係者に対する聞き取り調査、また、ティエス州に位置する M 村において現地調査を行った。
幼児教育は、国際目標の一つにその普及拡大が目標に掲げられているように、国際的にも重要性が認識されている。特に、教育的効果以外にも、社会的効果や経済的効果などがあることが明らかになったことから、多岐の分野に及ぶ人間の成長につながるとして、国際機関や各国政府からの注目も高まっている。また、幼児教育の効果の特長として、恵まれない状況下にいる人々がより大きな効果を受けることから、途上国において幼児教育を普及させることが世界の格差是正に繋がると考えられるため、喫緊の課題となっている（ワイカート, 2015；浜野・三輪, 2012）。しかし、途上国における幼児教育に関する研究は未だ限られており、アフリカ地域に関しては特に少ない。数少ない先行研究を検討したとこ
ろ、途上国において幼児教育の普及が停滞している要因は、政策的優先順位が低いことが指摘され、そのことによる利用料の高額化や都市集中化が要因となって、特に農村部の貧困層が取り残されている現状がある（UNESCO, 2007; UNESCO, 2015）。
このような背景がある一方、セネガルでは幼児教育が 2000 年に国家優先課題に設定され、それ以降、普及のための活動が盛んに行われてきた。特に 2000 年当時、都市部と農村部の格差が顕著であったことから、農村部に向けた幼児教育普及政策が行われた。その一環として、新たな幼児教育施設である子どもセンター（la case des tout-petits）が考案された。この子どもセンターとは、教育・栄養・保健の機能を兼ね備えたコミュニティーベースの幼児教育施設であり、農村部に向けて重点的に設置された。
特徴としては、他の幼児教育施設と比べて安価な利用料でありながら、質の良い教育が受けられることが挙げられる。そしてこの政策によって、都市部と農村部の幼児教育施設数の差は大きく改善された。
例えば、2002 年時点で都市部の幼児教育施設が 428 校であったのに対し、農村部は 41 校のみであった。
しかし、2013 年になると都市部 1,470 校、農村部 1,150 校と格差がかなり縮まった。ところが、このような改善にもかかわらず、都市部、農村部の就学率の差は 2002 年の時点で都市部 1.9%、農村部 0.6%であったのに対し、2013 年の時点で都市部 19.8%、農村部 5.8%と依然として格差は縮まっていない（MEN,2002; 2013）。このようなことから途上国において幼児教育の普及が停滞している要因は、単にアクセスや経済的問題だけではないことがうかがえる。また、幼い子どもに対する育児観は文化によって大きく異なることがわかっており（Harkness et al, 2013）、提供されている教育内容が保護者の期待に沿っていない場合、家庭の就学判断は不就学になることが明らかにされている（門松, 2016）。つまり、これらのことから、保護者がどのような幼児教育内容を望んでいるかを知る必要があり、また、それらの需要に対し、どのような幼児教育が提供されているかを調べる必要があると考える。
以上のような理由から、筆者は 8 月中にダカールにおいて文献収集や幼児教育関係者に対する聞き取
り調査、9 月にティエス州 M 村において家庭に対する聞き取り調査、10 月に子どもセンターにおいて教員への聞き取り調査及び観察調査を行った。

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II. Research Activity
II-1 Introduction

Since expanding Early Childhood Education (ECE) was included into one of the global education goals
at the World Conference on Education held in Thailand in 1990, international society came to pay muchattention to ECE. Senegal wasn’t an exception. In 2000, a former Senegalese president, Abdoulaye Wade
(term: 2000 - 2012) emphasized the importance of ECE and made it one of the national priorities. Since
then, the Senegalese government made every effort to expand ECE all over the country. First of all, they
formed an agency, le Ministère de la Famille et de la Petite Enfance, which is in charge of ECE. Due toinefficiency and some problems caused by the involvement of several ministries up to that time, however,
the establishment of an agency to be in charge of ECE was needed. Then a new type of ECE center called laCase des Tout-Petits (CTP) was created.
Before 2000, ECE in Senegal had a lot of problems, especially regarding the access. At that time, ECE
enrollment ratio was only 1.25% over the country. In addition to this, there was a big disparity between
urban and rural areas such as that the enrollment ratio in the urban was 1.9% while 0.6% in the rural. Oneof the reasons for this disparity of enrollment ratio was due to a big disparity of the number of ECE center
between urban and rural areas. According to the Ministry of National Education, there were 469 ECE
centers in Senegal in 2002 however 428 of them were in the urban area. It means that 91% of them areconcentrated in the urban area. Moreover, most of them were private so it was too expensive for low-income
families to use ECE center. Because of those reasons, CTP was created and constructed mostly in the ruralarea to improve the situation. Thanks to CTP and government’s effort, ECE situation in Senegal has much
improved. For example, in 2013, the number of ECE center increased to 2,620 in total and 1,470 in theurban while 1,150 in the rural area. Therefore, the ratio of the number of ECE center in both of urban andrural areas much improved. Furthermore, the number of public and community center went over the one ofprivate (see Table 1). Thus, compared to in 2002, the number of ECE center which people can use withrelatively reasonable price increased. However, looking at the enrollment ratio, there is no improvement of
the disparity between urban and rural areas. What is worse, the disparity got widened.
Table 1: Comparison ECE index in 2002 and 2013
2002
The number of ECE center (urban
area: rural area)
The number of private: public andcommunity center
The enrollment ratio (urban area
and rural area)

469 (428: 41= 91%: 9%)20132620 (1,470: 1,150= 55%:45%)

356: 113 (76%: 24%)

1,080: 1,540 (41%: 59%)

1.25% (1.9%: 0.6%)

12.1% (19.8%: 5.8%)

Reference: MEN 2003; 2013
From this data, one important fact should be pointed out that a big gap still remains between the improved
disparity on the number of constructed ECE and unimproved enrollment ratio in the rural area. Based onsuch context, this research aims at clarifying the reason of the stagnation of promoting ECE enrollment ina rural area of Senegal with focus on CTP as a major type of ECE center in the rural area of Senegal.

3Research questions
1. What is parent’s expectation to CTP?
2. What does CTP offer?
3. What are differences between parent’s expectation and CTP offer?
II-2 Study Area

Fieldwork is conducted in M village. M village situates in Thiès region which is next to Dakar region. In
M village, there is only one ECE center, that is, only CTP in the village apart from some religious
institutions, such as Koranic school called daaras where they accept only small children (approximatelyfrom one year old) to offer Koranic education. And also, there is one primary school and one lower
secondary school in the village. The total population is 2,168 in 2017 (from the interview in public office).
The number of children who is under six years old is 803.

Photo 1: A scenery of M village

Figure 1: Map of M village
Reference：Bilan diagnostic et programme d’INVESTISSEMENTS
de MEOUANEPRIORITAIRES DE LA commune

II-3 Methodology

This research employed a qualitative method. For RQ 1, a semi-structured interview was conducted toparents who have a child who is under six years old using Wolf-French interpretation. An interpreter was astudent who is originally from M village and currently study in Dakar. An interpreter and I visited eachhome and asked a parent to accept an interview. As for RQ 2, a semi-structured interview to educators andan observation were conducted in M village CTP. The interview was conducted in French. About RQ 3, I
used the results of the survey of RQ 1 and RQ 2 for the analyzing.

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Table 2: An outline of the content of the question
To parents
Basic information about family
Information about ECE
Information about child rearing

To educators

Information about CTP
Information about education
Information about management

The ethnic group, the religion, the family structure,
the fortune, the distance between CTP and home
Reason why they do or do not use CTP, expectation
to ECE, expectation to CTP
Education level which they expect to their children,competence and skills which they want their children
to acquire before children go to primary school, childrearing customs at home
The establishment years, the opening hours, cost, thenumber of children
Educators background, the contents of education
The activities of management committee,
management budget

In addition to the field work in M village, I collected some documents from l’Agence de la Petite Enfanceet de la Case des Tout-Petits (ANPECTP) and in Cheikh Anta Diop University. I also conducted aninterview with some people who concern with ECE.
II-4 Research Findings

The number of an informant is 38 in total, and most of the informants are mothers except two grandmothers.
Majority of their occupations are housewives who do not have any work and only three of them sometimes
have a merchant work without stable income. Though some of them had an education up to certain level(see Table 3), as the majority have never go to school, they cannot speak French and are illiterate. Among
informants, the number of parents who send their children to CTP is 14 and who do not send their children
to CTP is 24.
Table 3: Informant attributeinformant
Informant’s occupation
Informant’s academic background

Mother (36), Grandmother (2)Housewife (35), Merchant (3)No education (33), primary education (3), secondary education(1), tertiary education (1)Parents who do not send their children to CTP are divided into three groups, that is, Group Parents A who
never send their children to CTP, Group Parents B who have quit sending their children to CTP, Group C
parents who will send their children to CTP from this year.
Table 4: Informant groups
A
B
C

Group
parents who have never send their children to CTP
parents who have quit sending their children to CTP
parents who will send their children to CTP from this year

The number of informant
10
6
8

These categories can be divided into more groups. We will see the details each by each.

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As for group A, it is divided into four groups according to their reason why they have never sent theirchildren to CTP. That is, A-1) they sent their elder child to CTP but they think that CTP has a problem as
to quality, so they decided not to send a younger child there, A-2) they think that religious education ismore important than regular education, so they send their child to a religious institution, A-3) they cannot
send their child to CTP because of economic reason, A-4) they think that CTP has a problem as to quality.
Table 5: Reason why parents have never send their child to CTPGroup
A-1 They think that CTP has a problem as to the quality based on theirexperience of an elder child
A-2 They think that religious education is more important
A-3 They cannot send their child to CTP because of economic reason
A-4 They think that CTP has a problem as to quality

The number of informant
5
2
2
1

As for group B, this group is divided into four groups according to their reasons why they have quit
sending their children to CTP. That is, B-1) they think that CTP has a problem as to quality, B-2) theywanted their child to go to primary school earlier, B-3) they think that religious education is more important,B-4) their child refused to go to CTP.
Table 6: Reason why parents have quit sending their children to CTP
GroupsB-1
They think that CTP has a problem in terms of quality
B-2
They wanted their child to go to primary school earlier
B-3
They think that religious education is more important
B-4
Their child refused to go to CTP

The number of informant
3
1
1
1

As for group C, this group is divided into two groups. That is, C-1) they want to send their children to CTP
when their children turn three years old, C-2) they couldn’t afford to send their children to CTP last year.
Table 7: Reason why parents will send their children to CTP from this year
GroupsThe number of informant
C-1
They want their children to go to CTP from 3 years old
7
C-2
They couldn’t afford to send their children to CTP last year
1
As we can see Table 5 and 6, most of their reasons why they do not send their child to CTP is because of
the quality of CTP. In this sense, “quality” means both qualities of the education and quality of the setting.
As for the education of CTP, certain parents said that;“I have sent my elder child to CTP for two years, but there was no significance because mychild doesn’t speak French even two years schooling. It’s obvious that he didn’t study
anything there. So, I decided not to send younger one there.” As for the setting of CTP, someparents said that “In CTP, there is nothing but a rush mat, so I don’t think that children canhave a good education there. Also, since there is no toilet for children, if children ask
educators to go to the toilet, they make children go home by themselves. Even children pee

6on the way home because they can’t bear to do that at home. That’s too much”. (A part ofthe interview of a mother in her twenties, September 23)
In addition to these reasons, almost all parents want their children to acquire reading and writing abilities
before they enter primary school and they think that these abilities cannot be acquired in a home. Therefore,
parents expect educators to teach children reading and writing in CTP rather than singing or dancing. They
think that if educators do not teach these things, education in CTP is worthless. However, according tointerview with educators, as educators also think that it’s important to acquire reading and writing skills
before primary school, they apply indirect approach to teach children these skills. They teach these skill tochildren through singing or doing some games meeting children’s development. In addition, according tothe observation in CTP, although some parents said that there is nothing such as chairs, tables and someeducational materials, in fact, CTP has these things. Like this, parents sometimes are misinformed because
they usually get information indirectly from CTP. They get CTP information from neighbors. And also,
CTP often neglect to talk with parents. The management community of CTP does not work properly
because the system of the management community is dysfunctional. They do not hold a meeting regularly.
The M village CTP is almost managed by only educators, and parents are excluded. In this way, parents
cannot know about CTP correctly, and resulted in a weak connection between CTP and parents. Moreover,this weak management system leads a severe economic problem of CTP. CTP does not have enough fundto manage itself properly. In M village CTP, one problem is causing another issue like the case seen here.

Photo2: M village elementary school director,
director’s friend, CTP educators and Dr.
Soulayemane YORO (from left)

Photo3: M village CTP

II-5 Discussion and Conclusion

Based on what I mentioned above, I conclude this research as follow. As for the RQ 1 on what is a parent’s
expectation to CTP, the answer is that parents expect CTP to play a role of a school for small children(under 6 years old). Since most of the mothers do not have any education, they want CTP to teach theirchildren reading and writing on behalf of them. They recognize the importance of learning reading andwriting early as one of the keys to access a good education to develop a better life for children. On the other
hand, parents do not understand the benefit and effects of singing and dancing. They see these activities as
only a fun even though they help and promote the children’s development. Therefore, once parents get toknow their children are just singing or dancing at CTP, they stop sending them to CTP thinking that CTP
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is unuseful. In addition to this, parents also expect CTP to have good educational settings such as tables,
chairs and learning materials like other school has. Besides, most of the parents think that religious
education is equally important compared with normal education for children.
As for the RQ 2 on what is offered in CTP, the answer is that CTP supposed to offer an education basedon the national curriculum, however, it cannot because of the weak institutional management system. In M
village CTP, the management community does not work properly and the management is mostly done by
only educators. Therefore, this dysfunctional management system leads economic problem to CTP because
it cannot collect enough fund from the community, and this economic problem makes CTP education worse
due to a lack of insufficient facility and equipment. In this way, one problem leads another problem andmake CTP’s quality worse.
As for the RQ 3 on what are differences between the parent’s expectation and CTP offer, the answer is thatsince the connection between parents and CTP is very weak, parents tend to misunderstand about CTP. In
general, parents get information about CTP indirectly from CTP. They usually get that information fromneighbors. This is why they are often misinformed. For example, even though there are tables and chairs in
M village CTP, some parents wrongly assume that there is nothing but rush mat. And also, because parents
don’t understand the effect of CTP’s activities such as singing and dancing, they misunderstand that CTP
is just useless even though the parents and CTP share the ideas on the expected children’s skills to beacquired at CTP before entering primary school. In this way, the insufficient information sharing andmiscommunication between parents and CTP bring a gap on a perception of CTP’s quality and contribution
then cause the issue of low enrollment of CTP. In conclusion, parents should be included in the management
community of CTP to improve the function of management system. And also, educators should explain toparents what are the meanings of those activities to children so that parents are able to understand andrecognize what CTP offer is not much different from their expectations.
Acknowledgement

I am sincerely grateful to my supervisors, Mr. Soulayemane Yoro and Ms. Chiaki Miwa to support myresearch all the time. My gratitude also goes to Dr. Osamu Saito, Dr. Natsuko Imai, Ms. Aiko Hori and allother GLTP staff members to organize this excellent GLTP program. I believe that I could not complete
this research without their supports.
In addition, I would like to acknowledge great contributions of M village villagers and educators who
warmly accepted me to conduct fieldwork and the important contribution made by Mr. Pathé to connect
people in M village and me.
Finally, I would like to thank the many stakeholders who supported me to do research and stay in Senegal.

8References•

Harkness, S., Super, C. M., Mavridis, O. B., and Zeitlin, M. “Culture and early childhood
development: implication for policy and programs” in Britto, P. R. et al. eds. (2013) Handbook ofearly childhood development research and its impact on global policy, New York: Oxford
University Press, pp. 142-160.

•

MEN (Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale) (2003) Rapport National sur la Situation de l’Education
2003. Senegal: Author.

•

MEN (Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale) (2013) Rapport National sur la Situation de l’Education2013. Senegal: Author.

•

UNESCO. (2007) EFA Global Monitoring Report 2007: Strong Foundations Early childhood careand education.

•

UNESCO. (2015) EFA Global Monitoring Report 2015 Education for All 2000-2015:
Achievements and Challenges.

•

門松愛 (2016)「バングラディシュにおける保育の就学前教育選択の論理−学校教育への期待と育児観の影響に着目して−」比較教育学研究(53), 116-135.

•

浜野隆, 三輪千明 (2012)『発展途上国の保育と国際協力』東信堂.

•

ワイカート, P. デイヴィッド (浜野隆訳) (2015) 『幼児教育への国際的視座（ユネスコ国際教育政策叢書 5）』東信堂.

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III. Reflection to the GLTP in Africa
I participated in this program because I wanted to work with a guidance of a local supervisor who is atforefront of my research topic. In fact, in Japan, there are few researchers who are familiar with ECE of
Senegal and even it is difficult to find documents related to Senegalese ECE. That is why I thought thisGLTP program would be a good opportunity for me to conduct field research with a specialist. And as I
thought, I could have many great opportunities in the field. For example, I could get many valuable
documents as well as much information which was not available outside Senegal. In addition, I could getmuch meaningful advice from my local supervisor and his colleagues. That advice always made thisresearch improved and gave me new ideas.
With a kind support of Pro. Soulayemene Yoro, moreover, since I could have an opportunity to present myprovisional research finding to the people who work for l’ANPECTP. Fortunately, they kindly appreciated
my research as it deepened their understandings of the current situation of CTP in the field since there is
still little research conducted using a microscopic viewpoint. Additionally, according to them, my researchhelped them to realize how much important to hear the real voice of community members especially fromparents because they have never conducted a survey to household about ECE. Thus, through this GLTP
supported fieldwork, I could reconfirm the significance of this research for the field and it became one of
the happiest things I gained through this field experience.
On the other hand, I also had some difficulties in the field. Since my first stay in Senegal was for aninternship of JICA, I was in a sort of Japanese cultural environment even though I was in Senegal. In thistime, however, I was directly facing the Senegalese culture and life in a developing country. Especially ina place such as M village where there is no modern culture and setting, I came across many culture shocks.
For example, water and electricity often cut off and a shower water was almost always cold. And since evensome foods in supermarket sometimes were already gone bad, I had diarrhea many times during the stay.
Because of these experiences, sometimes I missed my life in Japan badly.
However, culture shocks have not always bad meaning. For instance, Senegalese is opened enough towelcome foreigners. They always treated me like a family member and I could learn Senegalese “Teranga”.
Teranga is a Senegalese local word, which means hospitality. I found that Senegalese Teranga is somehow
similar to Japanese “Omotenashi”. So, I was very happy to know that even though Japanese and Senegaleseculture are very different, we still have the common value, and furthermore, I realized the enjoyment of
culture. In this way, being next to them during this stay, I could know many different ideas and it muchinfluenced the way of thinking of the life with my broadened view.
As I have mentioned above, I had a great time during this GLTP program not only for the research but
also for a life experience. I could have great experiences much more than expected through the GLTP
program thus strongly recommend those who are interested in Africa or researching on African countries
to participate in this program. There are few opportunities like GLTP.
Finally, I would like to mention what I learned through this program and how I will make use of theseexperiences. As for this research, I would like to present results of this research to the public as much as
possible through conferences so that people can understand a real situation of ECE in Africa. I believe that
if we want to promote ECE in Africa, first we have to know and understand the reality of the field. I am
sure that this research helps people to understand the current ECE situation of a rural area of Senegal. Then
this might help to consider how to approach to a promotion of ECE in the field. It goes without saying that
this is the first step to achieve SDGs goals, especially goal 4.

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Talking about my career, I would like to be a bridge between Japan and Africa as a person who knows
both Japanese and African cultures. Because Africa is geographically very far from Japan, and evennowadays, it is still not easy to go to African countries, many people might think Africa does not have any
relation with us Japanese and we are totally different. However, African culture is sometimes surprisingly
similar to Japanese culture and we can share the same value as I experienced in Senegal. Therefore, I believethat Japanese and African can well understand each other and be much closer.
In addition to this, as you know, Africa is now developing very fast in every aspect, such as the economy,
population, and the presence and influence on the world. It is sure that there will be much more opportunities
that Japanese and African work together in the very near future not only in the public sector but also in theprivate sector. As some Japanese companies have already worked with African people or paid muchattention to the continent, more companies will try to approach and collaborate with them. Taking suchcontext into consideration, I would like to be a connection as a person who knows both cultures for Japaneseand African to be closer and more understands each other. And if I can be such a person, I would like toalways think about the development of both sides, Japan and Africa. Although I am still trying to find away how can I be such a person, I would like to make strong efforts to contribute to the development of therelationship between Japan and Africa.

Photo 4: Dr. Soulayemane YORO and me

Photo 5: Lunch with Dr. Soulayemane YORO, M
village elementary school director and his family

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