Readers of the Bulletin will remember the aunouncement of a Committee to get teachers, technicians, etc. to go to Algeria to help in reconstruct on. Some idea ef the desperate need is given in the following extract from New Sociuty of 11/10/£2. dd. Notes
The school year in Algeria was due to start on 1 October; but by 15 Sept. the last day for re-registration, financial inducements (equivalent to salaries between 53 and 63 per cent higher than in France) and moral appsals had persuaded no more than 1,500 French teachers to return to Algcrias
Compared with last year's force of 23,000 primary and 4,000 secondary teachers in public schools, estimates of the staff for thse coming term total some 6,000 primary and less than 599 secondary instructors. Practically all the country's 400 university lecturers left Algeria, and have not returned. With Ifoslems accou~ ntiag for only 10 per cent of the teaching force, a full start to the school year must depend on the return of the bulk of the French teachers; and nobody knows when this will be. Although the Algerian government has now fixed the official opening of the schools for 15 October, the programme will be drastically curtailed.
Oddly enough, the departure of the French will actually reduce congestion in the secondary and university classes, where the colous were in a majority. But the situation in the primary schools, where the Moslems outnumbered the svropeans by cight to one, will be acute, Beiw-en i954 and 1961 the number of Moslems attending primary classes for seven to cight years of regular schooling had risen from 317,000 to 800,000; and it was to have reached one million by 1963. liven so, this would be only some 55 per cent of all children of school ages
Possibilities of replacing French teachers are very limited. Towards the arabization of its schooling Algeria has asked the Arab League for 2,009 teachers now, and an additional 4,000 over the next five years. The League should cevtainly be able to provide some teachers, particularly from .gypt and Lebanon. Unesco has promised Algeria some 80 secondary teachers, and Russia has vffered a further 100. But all of this is marginal. ‘Some rudimontary instruction is being given by the F.L.N., but an attempt in Algiers to got older children to teach the younger ones ended in chaos. It may be that the French army will have to step in once agains Last year, about 80,000 children were being taught by teachers serving in the Army and presumably these classes could be extended. But the threat of serious waste of much-needed skill. is all too clear.