LANGUAGE-IN-EDUCATION PLANNING IN ALGERIA

28 Pages·2007·0.2 MB·English

LanguagePolicy (2007)6:225–252 (cid:1)Springer 2007
DOI 10.1007/s10993-007-9046-7
MOHAMED BENRABAH
LANGUAGE-IN-EDUCATION PLANNING IN ALGERIA:
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT AND CURRENT ISSUES
(Received 1 March2006; accepted in revised form 31December 2006)
ABSTRACT. The paper presents the language policy (arabisation) pursued in
Algeria since independence in 1962. The first section of the paper focuses on the
recentchangesingovernmentlanguagepolicy(returntoArabic–Frenchbilingualism
in schools) and reactions to them following the recommendations made by the
NationalCommissionfortheReformoftheEducationalSysteminMarch2001.The
secondpartgivesahistoricalbackgroundtopost-independentlanguage-in-education
planning.Thethirdsectionlooksattheunplanneddevelopmentsresultingfromthe
hegemonic nature of linguistic arabisation. The fourth section explores secondary
schoolstudents’attitudinalreactionstowardsAlgeria’slinguisticpluralism.Finally,
the paper argues that the Algerian leadership’s refusal to recognise linguistic plu-
ralismconsideredbeneficialbythemajorityofthepopulationrepresentsoneofthe
major obstacles to the nation-building process.
KEY WORDS: Algeria, arabisation, bilingualism, English, French, language
attitudes, language educational policy, language hegemony, language maintenance,
Tamazight
ABBREVIATIONS: CNRSE – National Commission for the Reform of the Edu-
cationalSystem;FFS–SocialistForcesFront;MCB–BerberCulturalMovement;
HCA –High Commission for Berber Affairs
Introduction
Algeria’s development history since its independence consists of
three main phases each of which has had an impact on language
education policies. The first phase is characterised by the colonial
legacies amongst which was a network of schools and an educa-
tional system dominated by the French language with Arabic grow-
ing steadily in importance. The second phase lasted from the late
1960s to the late 1990s and corresponded to the socialist-era central
planning economy, called the nationalist transition. The Arabic lan-
guage was gradually imposed in the educational sector. An extreme
226 mohamed benrabah
version of exclusive nationalism inspired by the 19th century
European ideal of linguistic convergence marked this era. The third
phase began in the early 2000s corresponding to the transition to
the free economic market with less assertive arabisation policies.
During the third phase, the authorities have encountered hostility
to the reform of the schooling system. In fact, the Algerian govern-
ment has come to admit that education has ‘‘failed’’. Two examples
of student achievement will be used here as recent illustrations of
this failure. In June 2005, ten classes in the city of Mascara took
their final examination at the end of the primary cycle (Sixth Form
examination for 11–12 year olds) and not one single pupil suc-
ceeded. The second illustration concerns university standards. In
mid-November 2005, the Minister of Higher Education declared
that 80% of first-year students fail their final exams because of lin-
guistic incompetence. The majority of the student population who
enrol in higher education have been schooled through Literary/
Classical Arabic only and are hence weak in French, the language
of instruction in scientific disciplines (Allal, 2005: 13; Maı¨z &
Rouadjia, 2005: 13). What is more, the imposition of an exclusively
Arabic monolingual schooling system implemented during the
nationalist phase is considered to be a major source of its current
‘‘failure’’, of the rise of religious fanaticism, and the civil war that
has ravaged Algeria since the early 1990s (Benrabah, 1999a: 154–
160, 2004: 71–73; Byrd, 2003: 78; Coffman, 1992: 147 & 185, 1995).
The issue of language education policies in Algeria is a sensitive
issue embroiled in passionate politics and, as correctly assessed by
Berger (2002: 8), it is ‘‘the most severe problem of Algeria in its
present and troubled state’’. This situation sets Algeria apart from
the rest of the Arab world and Africa and makes it a particularly
instructive example for the fields of language policy and language-
in-education planning.
The present paper aims to examine Algeria’s language education
policies since its independence. It will be organised as follows. The
first part will present recent reforms and opposition to their imple-
mentation. In the second section, a description of post-independent
language-in-education planning will be given with a view to set the
background for a better understanding of the current situation. In
the third section, it will be argued that the hegemony of linguistic
arabisation has led to resistance and to the maintenance of
languages that were targeted by arabisation. The fourth part of
the paper will explore Algerian secondary-school students’ attitudes
language-in-education planning in algeria 227
towards Algeria’s multilingualism. In the final section, it will be
argued that the opposition of the Algerian leadership to linguistic
pluralism remains the major obstacle to the process of nation-
building.
Educational System in Crisis: Reforms and Reactions
Since the early 2000s, the issue of languages in the educational sys-
tem has been the subject of considerable debate in Algeria: should
schools continue to favour monolingualism in Arabic or should
they adopt Arabic–French bilingualism? Arabo-Islamists, who sup-
port the policy of arabisation (monolingualism), are opposed to
‘‘Modernists’’ (mainly secular and/or francophone members of the
population and the elite) who call for the implementation of Ara-
bic–French bilingualism. The debate reached its climax in 2002
when opponents to bilingual education issued a fatwa against sup-
porters of educational reforms (Abdelhai, 2001: 7) and considered
the defenders of bilingualism as the ‘‘enemies of Islam and the
Arabic language’’ and the ‘‘supporters of forced Westernisation of
Algerians’’*1 (Djamel, 2001: 3). Due to be implemented in Septem-
ber 2001, the reforms were suspended by the Ministry of the Inte-
rior on 3 September 2001.
This strong opposition came as a reaction to the recommenda-
tions made in mid-March 2001 by the National Commission for
the Reform of the Educational System (CNRSE in French) set up
in May 2000 by the newly elected Head of State, President Abdela-
ziz Bouteflika. In March 2001, the CNRSE recommended that
French be reintroduced as the first mandatory foreign language in
Grade Two (for 6–7 year olds) of the primary cycle instead of
starting it in Grade Four (for 8–9 year olds) as had been the case
since the late 1970s. The CNRSE also suggested that scientific dis-
ciplines be taught in French instead of Arabic in secondary schools
(Sebti, 2001). The obvious intended outcomes are bilingualism and
biliteracy as ways of improving student achievement. It requires a
clear shift from a ‘‘weak’’ bilingual education – French taught as a
subject – to a ‘‘strong’’ form of bilingual education which involves
students learning content (scientific disciplines) through Arabic and
French.
1 Quotes marked by an asterisk were translated from Arabic or French by the present
author.
228 mohamed benrabah
The authorities and a large part of the population alike have felt
the need for educational reforms, which should include, among
other things, the reintroduction of French at an early stage. Before
he was assassinated in June 1992, President Mohamed Boudiaf
described the educational system as ‘‘doomed and unworthy of the
Algerian people’’* (Messaoudi & Schemla, 1995: 186). Similarly,
prior to his election as Head of State in April 1999, candidate
Abdelaziz Bouteflika often repeated in public the expression
‘‘doomed schooling system’’. In 1999, a survey conducted for the
central authorities revealed that 75% of Algerians supported the
idea of teaching scientific school subjects in French (Djamel, 2001:
3). Many parents believe that Algeria’s public schools ‘‘produce
generations of illiterate people who master neither Arabic nor
French’’* (Beauge´, 2004: 17).
Indeed, the educational system in Algeria has been detrimental
to quality and open-mindedness (Si Ameur & Sidhoum, 1992: 167).
In 1999, President Bouteflika’s first government committed itself to
ending its interference with pedagogical matters, to revising school
cycles, curricula and textbooks, and to promoting teacher training
as means of eradicating Islamist fanaticism fuelled by the Algerian
educational system. The State also set itself the task of legalising
private schools that existed in a legal vacuum and which provide
an Arabic–French bilingual education for pupils who refuse to at-
tend Arabic-only public schools (Martı´n, 2003: 41). And following
the dramatic events of 11 September 2001, the Algerian authorities,
like most other Arab-Muslim governments around the world, came
under strong pressure from the West to reform educational curric-
ula as part of the Global War on Terror (Karmani, 2005: 262). In
addition to post-9/11 developments, two other factors have worked
against the maintenance of a monolingual schooling system: first,
the demand for economic reforms comes from the pressure exerted
by internationalism and the transition to a market economy,
second, there are socio-political demands for democratisation and
minority linguistic rights (Benrabah, 2005). Hence, educational
reforms that aim at bilingual/multilingual education are not simply
an educational issue: these are expressions of political ideology,
tides of political change and political initiatives (Baker, 2003: 101).
An understanding of the undergoing changes and the opposition
they generate require a historical perspective on language-in-educa-
tion planning in Algeria.
language-in-education planning in algeria 229
Post-independent language-in-education policies
One month before independence, the leadership of the Algerian
revolutionary movement committed the future State to the policy
of linguistic arabisation as follows: ‘‘[The role of the Revolution]
is above all [...] to restore to Arabic – the very expression of the
cultural values of our country – its dignity and its efficacy as a
language of civilisation’’ (Gordon, 1978: 149). In fact, the assimila-
tionist ideology of colonial France, which undervalued Literary/
Classical Arabic, turned this language into the language of libera-
tion (Djite´, 1992: 16). This language’s symbolic value was further
increased by its link with Islamic culture and religion. ‘‘Islam and
the Arabic language were effective forces of resistance against the
attempt of the colonial regime to depersonalise Algeria’’ (Gordon,
1966: 137). However, Algeria’s separatist nationalism was religious
in form but not content: the motivation was not the establishment
of an Islamic theocracy but of democracy even though the motiva-
tion for the latter has been obliterated by the military establish-
ment which has repeatedly imposed dictatorial forms of
government since the war of liberation (Roberts, 2003: 30). When
Algeria gained its independence in July 1962, it was linguistically a
pluralistic country. This was the result of its heritage including
influences from Berber, Phoenician, Roman, Vandal, Byzantine,
Jewish, Moor, Arabic, Spanish, Ottoman and French. Its inhabit-
ants spoke Algerian Arabic and Berber or Tamazight (in several
local varieties) and French. The arabisation policy overlooked
the country’s linguistic diversity, denied any status to the languages
spoken in Algeria and promoted Literary/Classical Arabic
developed as the lingua franca of the Arab Middle East (Roberts,
2003: 11).
Algeria’s first president, Ahmed Ben Bella, initiated the policy of
linguistic arabisation in primary schools and as early as October
1962, he declared that Literary Arabic was to be introduced to the
educational system (Grandguillaume, 2004: 27). Arabic teaching
became obligatory in all programmes and at all levels during
the period 1963–1964 and the amount of time spent on French-
language teaching decreased gradually (Bennoune, 2000: 228).
Hence, French turned out to be ‘‘the first target of arabisation’’
(Lewis, 2004). The following year, Grade One (for 5–6 year olds)
of the primary cycle was fully arabised and the amount of time
devoted to Arabic-language teaching rose to 10 hours in all other
230 mohamed benrabah
levels. Furthermore, religious instruction and civics were added on
top of this (Grandguillaume, 2004: 27). However, the government’s
ambitious programme faced real difficulties linked with the social
changes that accompanied the end of French colonialism. The
government was confronted with a massive increase (from 14% to
36.37%) in pupil enrolment in the first cycle and the problem of
teaching personnel and their competency. By July 1962, 25,000 edu-
cators had left Algeria as a result of the mass exodus of Europeans
(Assous, 1985: 105; Bennoune, 2000: 223). The illiteracy rate
stood at around 90% (Bennoune, 2000: 12; Heggoy, 1984: 111;
Lacheraf, 1978: 313) and the number of Algerians literate in Liter-
ary Arabic only was estimated at around 300,000 out of a popula-
tion of 10 million (Gallagher, 1968: 148; Gordon, 1978: 151). As to
the French language, 1 million were able to read it and 6 million
spoke it (Gallagher, 1968: 134). In 1962–1963, the authorities hired
10,988 monitors (Assous, 1985: 106) ‘‘whose intellectual hori-
zons [were] at times only slightly less limited than their pupils’’’
(Gallagher, 1968: 138). A year later, 1,000 Egyptians were recruited
as Arabic-language instructors. Most of these teachers turned out
to be unqualified for teaching and totally ignorant of the Algerian
social reality (Sarter & Sefta, 1992: 111–112). Their spoken
Egyptian Arabic was incomprehensible to Algerians in general and
Tamazight-speaking populations in particular and their traditional
pedagogy (learning by rote and class recitation, physical punish-
ment and so on) proved inadequate (Grandguillaume, 2004: 27–28;
Wardhaugh, 1987: 189). What is more, the majority of these teach-
ers were members of the Muslim Brotherhood and ‘‘interested
more in the ideological indoctrination of the students than in
teaching’’ (Saad, 1992: 60). The Egyptian educators proved to be
major channels for importing Islamist ideology into Algerian public
life (Abu-Haidar, 2000: 161; Mostari, 2004: 38; Roberts, 2003: 12;
Thomas, 1999: 27).
After the June 1965 military coup led by Colonel Boumediene,
arabisation gained momentum under the latter’s presidency (1965–
1978). President Boumediene’s arabisation drive is best illustrated
by the following declaration made by his first Minister of Educa-
tion, Ahmed Taleb Ibrahimi, during a government session in the
1960s: ‘‘This [arabisation] will not work, but we have to do it...’’*
(Grandguillaume, 1995: 18). In September 1967, Taleb Ibrahimi
initiated total arabisation of Grade Two in primary schools. But
the arabisation of the first two primary grades coupled with the
language-in-education planning in algeria 231
lower educational quality led many parents to delay the registration
of their children until the third year where French remained domi-
nant (Saad, 1992: 61). A survey carried out by the University of
Berkeley under the auspices of the Department of Planning showed
that 80% of the youth were against the arabisation of university
learning (Calvet, 1996: 118). Meanwhile, Taleb Ibrahimi informally
allowed Mouloud Mammeri, a Kabylian writer/academic and
Berberist militant, to restore the chair of Berber studies at Algiers
University banned by Ben Bella’s government in October 1962
(Chaker, 1998: 42; Guenoun, 1999: 30). After a cabinet shake-up in
July 1970, Taleb Ibrahimi became Minister of Culture and Infor-
mation and launched the Cultural Revolution in order to accom-
pany the government’s radical economic and foreign policies
(Roberts, 2003: 11). In September 1976, educational reforms were
introduced to favour, among other things, linguistic arabisation as
a means of increasing the population’s competence in Literary
Arabic (Benachenhou, 1992: 210; Bennoune, 2000: 301). Until the
1970s, the educational structure inherited from the colonial period
consisted of three levels: primary school (lasting 5 years), middle
school (4 years) and secondary school (3 years). Starting from
1976, an experimental schooling system called the Fundamental
School was implemented. It consisted of a fusion of primary and
middle school grades (nine consecutive years) with all the teaching
done in Arabic (except foreign languages) (Assous, 1985: 132–133;
Saad, 1992: 65–66).
In April 1977, the appointment of Mostefa Lacheraf as Minister
of Primary and Secondary Education signalled a pause in the
ill-prepared and excessively speedy arabising process. This well-
known writer and thinker favoured gradual arabisation and bilin-
gual education because he believed that French could serve as a
‘‘reference point, a stimulant’’ that would force the Arabic lan-
guage ‘‘to be on the alert’’* (Berri, 1973: 16). At the end of 1963,
he advocated the necessary maintenance of French in the schooling
system for as long as it would take to reform Arabic and ‘‘desacra-
lise’’ traditional culture (Gordon, 1966: 192–193). Soon after being
appointed Minister, Lacheraf suspended the Fundamental School,
dismissed the arabophone personnel in his Ministry, re-instated tea-
cher training in French as well as ‘‘strong’’ forms of bilingualism in
primary schools with scientific subjects (math, calculus, biology)
taught in French. Lacheraf resigned when President Boumediene
died in December 1978. The pro-bilingual elements within the State
232 mohamed benrabah
were sidelined by the pro-arabisation lobby (Islamists, conservatives
and nationalists). The successor of President Boumediene favoured
the latter group during his presidency (1979–1992).
Hegemony and Resistance
Mohamed Cherif Kharroubi replaced Mostepha Lacheraf as Minis-
ter of Primary and Secondary Education in March 1979. The new
Minister, a monolingual arabophone and pan-Arabist Kabylian
trained in Syria, was ‘‘detested [by his fellow Kabylians] for his
refusal to speak his mother tongue’’ (Roberts, 1980: 121). His first
decisions were to resume the policy of total arabisation, implement
the Fundamental School systematically and impose compulsory
teaching of religious instruction at all levels (Tefiani, 1984:
121–122). The Ministry personnel and course designers were given
a free hand in designing Islamist syllabuses and teaching. It did not
take them long to turn arabisation into an islamisation process
(Benrabah, 1999a: 154–157). French was postponed until Grade
Four as the first mandatory foreign language and English as the
second mandatory foreign language in Grade Eight. In 1986, for-
eign languages like German, Italian, Russian and Spanish, known
as ‘‘minority languages’’, were simply dropped in Middle Schools
(for students aged 12–15). Hence, between 1984 and 1994, univer-
sity departments offered ‘‘Bachelor’s degrees’’ for beginners in these
‘‘minority languages’’ (Abi Ayad, 1998: 99; Miliani 2000: 18).
In the meantime, Algeria’s elites preferred to enrol their children
in institutions controlled by the French government. They, thus,
indulged in the practice of elite closure (Myers-Scotton, 1993: 149)
and promoted arabisation as a strategy to disqualify those less for-
tunate and minimise competition for their own children, for whom
they could ensure the appropriate education needed (in French) for
good careers in modern business and technology (Thomas, 1999:
26). This practice was most visible in Algiers where a small number
of primary and secondary schools were unofficially bilingual. For
example, the former French Lyce´e Descartes was ‘‘nationalised’’ to
provide a French education to the children of several members of
the political, military and educational elites (Messaoudi & Schemla,
1995: 59). As to the majority of young Algerians, often educated in
Arabic only and who had an inadequate command of French
(which is needed for career advancement), they enrolled in arabised
language-in-education planning in algeria 233
university departments (Islamic Law and Arabic Literature in
particular) and became susceptible to Islamist teaching and indoc-
trination (Coffman, 1992: 147 & 185, 1995; Roberts, 2003: 12;
Stone 1993: 52).
At the beginning of the 1990s, the pro-arabisation lobby put
pressure on the Minister of Education to delay yet again French
language teaching in the Fundamental School. The Minister did
not satisfy the lobbyists but he put English on the same par as
French (Laib, 1993: 7). Starting from September 1993, school-chil-
dren who accessed Grade Four had to choose between French and
English as the first mandatory foreign language (Bennoune, 2000:
303). In other words, not only was French no longer the first com-
pulsory foreign language, but it could also be chosen as the second
foreign language in Grade Eight. However, this new language com-
petition ended up favouring French because the number of pupils
who chose English was negligible (Queffe´lec et al., 2002: 38). In
universities, 95% of post-graduate courses in sciences and 95% of
undergraduate courses in medicine and technical disciplines are
taught in French. And the majority of undergraduates in scientific
streams prefer to follow lectures given in French (Miliani, 2000:
20). In the 1990s, many independent establishments were illegally
created by the associations of parents to offer Arabic–French bilin-
gual education from nursery to secondary levels. In 2003–2004,
there were between 380 and 600 such private schools in major
towns and cities (Gillet, 2004: 1342; Martı´n, 2003: 41). The total
student population in the private sector was estimated at 80,000 in
2004 (Kourta, 2004: 6).
The maintenance of French in Algeria could be interpreted as
resistance to the hegemony of arabisation. It has been argued that
‘‘strategies of resistance [are] a typical reaction to overt political
and linguistic oppression’’ (Mesthrie et al., 2000: 333). The targets
of arabisation were French and the first languages of Algerians
(Algerian Arabic and Berber). The survival and spread of both first
languages could be described as an illustration of covert and/or
overt resistance to the arabisation policy. Opposition to Algeria’s
language policy first came from the Berber-speaking minority, the
Kabylians. They began with an armed struggle against the central
authorities in 1963–1964 under the banner of the newly formed
party the Socialist Forces Front (FFS in French). The ideological
trends united by the FFS were all opposed to arabisation (Mahe´,
2001: 442). The 1963–1964 dramatic turning point announced
234 mohamed benrabah
future and repetitive unrest in the Kabylian region. The hasty
policy of arabisation and its acceleration with Mostefa Lacheraf’s
replacement by a ‘‘token’’ Kabylian kindled rioting in Kabylia
(Tabory & Tabory, 1987: 76). After the authorities cancelled
Mouloud Mammeri’s lecture on ancient Tamazight poetry which
was to be held at the University of Tizi Ouzou in March 1980, a
series of riots were sparked and various demonstrations were
organised in the spring of 1980. These had been preceded by a
number of repressive measures against the Berber language and
culture. The Circle of Berber Studies at Algiers University was
abolished and its Berberist leaders arrested in January 1971; the
chair of Berber studies at Algiers University was abolished in 1973;
possession of the Berber alphabet and dictionaries was made a
criminal offence (Guenoun, 1999: 32–33; Sadi, 1991: 29–30). The
frustration of the local population reached its climax with the
censorship of Mammeri’s lecture.
The 1980 convulsions, known as the Berber Spring, turned out to
be the first major destabilisation of the regime and announced the
1988 October uprisings which led to the end of the single-party
‘‘socialist’’ system and to political liberalisation. Prior to the Berber
Spring, Berberophones had adopted a form of passive resistance
expressed in language use. Tamazight-speaking parents banned the
use of Arabic by their children at home (Kahlouche, 2004: 106) and
resistance spilled over into the streets of Algiers where
Berberophones deliberately spoke French or Tamazight in cafes,
restaurants, hotels and certain administrative sectors (Harbi, 1980:
32). After 1980, under the ideological guidance of the Berber
Cultural Movement (MCB in French), Berberophones demanded
political liberalisation as a way to guarantee their linguistic and
cultural rights within a democratic Algeria (Maddy-Weitzman,
2001: 38). They also called for the official recognition of Algerian
Arabic and Tamazight and refused the arabisation of the educa-
tional system because of its ‘‘de-Frenchifying’’ objectives and its
inability to transmit democratic and secular ideals (Mahe´, 2001:
471). Following the political liberalisation of post-October 1988,
two Departments of Berber Language and Culture were created,
one at the University of Tizi Ouzou in January 1990 and the
other at the University of Bejaia in October 1991 (Chaker, 1998:
150; Kahlouche 2000: 158; Tigziri 2002: 61). Between September
1994 and April 1995, the MCB organised general strikes and
paralysed the entire educational sector in Kabylia. Consequently,