Education in Mauritania

The French also experimented with "mobile schools" after World War II, and in this way they provided public education for a larger number of nomads.

[1] The independent government viewed secular education as one of the major methods to promote national unity, as well as a necessary step toward the development of a modern economy.

Recognizing the need for a better educated work force, in 1986, the President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya's government launched a major literacy campaign and created the State Secretariat of Culture, Information, and Telecommunications to head the effort.

Planned investment in education for the years 1985 through 1988 was set at US$27 million under the Economic Recovery Program for 1985-88, an increase of less than 1 percent over the period from 1980 through 1984.

In the early 1980s, instruction in the Pulaar, Azayr (Soninke), and Wolof languages was introduced into the primary school curriculum, and Literary Arabic was emphasized at all levels.

The official policy of gradually replacing French with local languages and Literary Arabic, adopted in the late 1970s, drew vigorous protests from French-speaking black Mauritanians and was abandoned within a decade.

In 1987 the World Bank agreed to help make Mauritania's education system more responsive to the country's development needs.

However, a lack of adequate school facilities and teachers, particularly in rural areas, is likely to impede the full realization of the government’s goal of universal primary education in Mauritania until at least 2007.

[2] Public school is free, but other costs such as books and lunches make education unaffordable for many poor children.

Ongoing challenges to the provision of quality education in Mauritania include high dropout and repetition rates, inadequate curriculum, and a poor national infrastructure that prevents children from traveling to and from school.