Education in Ivory Coast
[1] According to The World Factbook - Central Intelligence Agency as of (2019, 89.9% of the population age 15 and over can read and write in Ivory Coast were respectively literate) facts.
[1] The literacy rate for adults remains low: in 2000, it was estimated that only 48.7% of the total population was literate (60.8% of males and 38.6% of females).
[5] Since the 2010s, the Ivorian government has implemented reforms to expand access to secondary and higher education, with a focus on STEM fields and teacher training.
The school year was divided into three terms, beginning in September and separated by short Christmas and Easter holidays and a two-month summer recess.
Most instruction encouraged mental discipline more than analytical thinking or creativity, by emphasizing rote memorization and oral recitation.
By 2012, this figure had risen to 94.2%, meaning that Côte d'Ivoire was on track to reach the Millennium Development Goal of primary education for all.
[7] Children entered primary school at the age of seven or eight and passed through six grades, divided into preparatory, elementary, and intermediate levels.
Classes in reading, writing, and arithmetic were taught, gradually supplemented by history, geography, natural sciences, music, art, and physical education.
Standard school-leaving exams led to the certificate of elementary education (certificat d'étude primaires élémentaires—CEPE) and determined entrance to secondary institutions.
This qualification generally allowed them to continue at the collège or lycée, enter a teacher-training institution, or find an entry-level job in commerce or government.
The dropout rate was especially high for girls, who made up only 18 percent of the student body during the last two years of secondary school.
This training included courses in agriculture, engineering, public works, transportation management, secretarial and commercial subjects, and building trades.
Heavily dependent on French assistance, the university had faculties of law, sciences, and letters and schools of agriculture, public works, administration and fine arts.
Other institutions of higher learning, known as grandes écoles, awarded certificates of training in specialized fields in cooperation with, but not as part of, the national university.
The government responded to teacher shortages with training programs and short courses and by recruiting expatriates to teach at the secondary and postsecondary levels.
Despite this tradition of criticism, many government officials achieved political office through leadership positions in the teachers' union.
The government employed innovative methods to improve the education system—including the use of televised instruction in primary schools in the 1970s—a project that was abandoned as too expensive.
Computers and automated data processing equipment were used at the national university in 1987 and were to be introduced at lower levels of the education system by 1990.
By the late 1980s, the government was producing its own text books, previously purchased in France, to reflect local cultural values.
The internal efficiency of the education system was relatively low, partly because of the large number of students who repeated courses and the high dropout level.
