The principles governing the Algerian educational system are stipulated in the Algerian Constitution, in particular Article 53, that education is an inalienable right.
Education is one of the major prerogatives assigned to the State, which allocates to it a substantial budgetary envelope.
The school system is characterized by the centralization of programs, methods and schedules. However, the management of institutions and staff is decentralized. Law No. 08-04 of January 23rd 2008, laying down the National Education Act, enshrines the right to education through Articles 10, 11, and 12:
Article 10: The State guarantees the right to education for all Algerians and Algerians without discrimination on grounds of sex, social origin or geographical origin.
Article 11: The right to education is embodied in the generalization of basic education and in the guarantee of equal opportunities in terms of the conditions of schooling and the pursuit of studies after basic education.
Article 12: Education is compulsory for all girls and boys aged 6 to 16 years.
Beyond the need to be grateful to the sectors concerned for staying the course, we must honestly understand that, while quantitative efforts have been made to give each student a place, we are far from the “qualitative aspect” account.
Moreover, the flight of the subjects of the baccalauréat– a global phenomenon, but which has been massive in this country– has undermined the credibility of this decisive examination. Attempts to correct the screeching drifts are further torpedoed by fringes of Algerians for whom nothing has to change.
It is undeniable that school is the common good of everyone.
It is a fact that all the governments which succeeded one another have made available means. Almost 10.5 million pupils with a budget of 1050 billion DA (20% of the state’s operating budget), an average of 100,000 DA or 8 to 10 times less compared with European countries (8,000 to 13,000 euros), one can not compete so much that more than 90% of this budget is constituted by a wage bill.
According to Onec figures, the number of students who are candidates for the baccalaureate exam is 818,520 pupils. The success rate for the 2016 baccalaureate session reached 49.47% for students enrolled.
Four million graduates have been trained by the Algerian university in fifty years of existence. Certainly the qualitative aspect suffered but it was the price to pay for the massification due to a thirst for knowledge. Since then, we have settled into fatality; because qualitatively, the results are not encouraging. Anomalies have been accumulated over time, which cause a long disintegration of the level of studies.
Until recently, Algeria no longer meets the criteria for the Unesco baccalauréat. Moreover, the number of pupils turning towards the mathematics or technical mathematics baccalauréat (the royal road) is derisory.
Moreover, when a footballer gets in one year what a teacher earns in a career, there is something out of place in the scale of values.
The training of engineers has been marginalized in universities.
This does not mean, of course, that literary or other disciplines should be overlooked, but these are well-taught and do not require important schedules, especially since what is important for our young people is the mental structuring which, whatever one may think of it, is fundamental, acquired by mathematical reasoning. It is therefore of the utmost importance to refocus education and then to give priority to mathematics at the primary level.
By comparison Algeria has more candidates than France. We do not know where this will lead; at this rate of enrollment we will have 1 million candidates for the BAC, 2 million students well before 2020.
This is obvious: the State will not be able to take over all students at university level.
In the vast majority of countries, there is a high school diploma, admission to university is by competitive examination according to the possibilities of reception. The secondary school diploma, which would replace the baccalaureate, only devotes the current situation of entry by competition, using as a criterion the marks of the BAC. This will be a necessary but not sufficient condition… The implementation of this new vision could be announced to be applied to the new cohorts that enter secondary school in September 2019. Let us add that these are hundreds of billions which will be saved in addition to all the stressful mobilization that will be avoided.
Apple has a treasury of the size of Vietnam’s GDP or more than two and a half times the totality of the Algerian sovereign wealth fund, a hallucinating figure which means that in less than a decade, humanity produces more new knowledge than in the last 7000 years of its existence.
Barack Obama talking about the Internet thinks it’s like oxygen: “In an era where you can apply for a job, take a course, pay your bills, order a pizza, and even find love from your Smartphone, the Internet is not a luxury, it is a necessity.”
The university of the new century is a knowledge-based enterprise where only the most competent, whatever their origins, will be successful and will be rewarded to the right extent of their efforts.
Algeria needs more workers, technicians, masons, plumbers, engineers and doctors.
Physical university should set up the virtual university: the university of all knowledge, online courses with interactive devices, whose audience is theoretically unlimited. Although the industry is still not in a position to formulate its demand for training, there are many challenges in terms of enrollment, programs and new occupations, such as information technology, robotics, nanotechnologies, energy with the fight against climatic convulsions, water stress and food self-sufficiency. The formation of an elite requires breath, endurance and protection of the highest authorities to protect the environment of the future elite, the future’s real wealth of the country.
In any case it is important to implement competition to find the best.
By steadfastly embarking on a transition to sustainable human development, the baccalaureate of sustainable human development is a work that deserves to be launched.
How can emerging new revolutionaries be able to impel this Revolution 2.0 which makes its grail on the economy of knowledge; another important jihad that will allow Algeria to improve its rank? To continue to fight for an Algeria of its dreams, in a discreet way, far from the effects of announcement and the limelight of the ramp, Algeria needs constructive criticism.
