仏語圏西アフリカ諸国における二言語教育

─導入の理念と現状─

抄録

  It has been argued in Francophone West Africa that mother languages should be used for the medium of instruction or that bilingual education should be introduced in education system. To date much research has been done by the international organizations (UNICEF and UNESCO, for example), NGOs and other aid agencies. This research has supported the promotion of bilingual education in Francophone West Africa.

  In some West African regions, bilingual education has been put into practice a number of times on an experimental basis. In this kind of trial exercise, French and an African language have been used as the media of instruction. In cases where results are successful, bilingual programs are aimed to extend througout entire nations. While bilingual education programs have been introduced in numerous instance upon achieving independence from France, many of these efforts represented ‘short term projects’ or mere ‘experimental’ program. Many of the experiments have not brought the expected results that bilingual education would attract students to school and improve student test scores. Despite the efforts of international organizations and other agencies, experimental bilingual education rarely have the official approval of government, and have not been succesful in being introduced as a part of formal education policy. It can be inferred from this situation that there are specific contextual factors to prevent official bilingual education in the area.

  The purpose of this essay is to analyze and interpret the situation of bilingual education in Francophone West Africa, departing from the focus of previous studies by looking primarily at the discordance among advocate aid agencies and the small need for bilingual education within respective countries.

  This essay is composed of five parts. The first part introduces the diversity of languages and the multilingual situation in the Francophone West Africa. The languages in the area can be classified into three categories according to its role: official language (langue officielle), vehicular languages （langue[s] véhiculaire[s]), and gregarious languages（langues grégaires). Among these functions, vehicular languages tended to be used as media of instruction at the first step in experimental bilingual education.

  The second part focuses on ‘medium’ languages in education which were affected by French colonial policies. Medium languages had changed from African languages, which proceed by the catholic mission, to french language as the educational policies had changed to exclude religious education in France. The evolution of official language policies in education is therefore explained from a historical point of view.

  In the third part, official positions in regards to bilingual education are introduced by referring to arguments of administrators and the laws of each country. This part analyses from the following two points of view: the African elites aiming to continue the use of the French language, and the rivalries between African languages groups after independence.

  The fourth part explains the situation of bilingual education in Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali. In Niger, bilingual education started from 1973 in primary experimental schools. In these schools, African languages had been used as the media of instruction for the first three of six years. New programs which use African language for all six years started in 2001. However, this new program is also practiced in the experimental schools, and had not been introduced to all schools in Niger until very recently. In addition, the number of experimental schools does not show drastic growth. (View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)