Education, Citizenship, and National Identity in the Sahel

At independence, Sahelian states inherited educational systems rooted in the colonial French model and based on secularism or laïcité. Both during and after colonialism, these formal public educational systems found little popular appeal, and indeed often faced clear resistance at the popular level. By contrast, a parallel system of Islamic education thrived, expanded, and evolved in the region, ranging from traditional Quranic schools to more modern Franco-Arabic schools. In the 1990s, a number of factors began to call into question the viability of this bifurcated educational system. This chapter surveys the trajectory of educational systems in the Muslim societies of the Sahel, and analyzes the forces shaping new hybrid models that are emerging. It examines how reformed educational systems are evolving in ways that diverge from the historical secular model with the potential for producing new models of citizenship deeply imbued with religious identities. The chapter offers an interpretation of the longer-term implications of these changes for national identity and citizenship in a changing Sahel.