The voice of youth in improving the quality of basic education in Mali: Young people’s views on and actions towards achieving a quality education.

Abstract

This study investigated Malian young people’s views on and efforts towards achieving quality basic education in Mali. Through focus groups and semi-structured interviews 28 young people in Bamako, who are organized in youth organisations, were asked (1) what they think of the quality of education, (2) how it can be improved, (3) what their own efforts are to achieve quality education and (4) what factors hinder or enhance them. Furthermore five teachers and two staff members from two different NGOs were asked about the role of young people in improving the quality of basic education. Results show that in general the quality of basic education is poor. The young people came up with many issues regarding the quality, for instance the content of education is not contextualized, teachers or not well trained, teacher-pupil ratios are too high and there is a lack of materials. To improve this quality is especially the responsibility of the government, according to young people. The actions of young people themselves are classified into four strategies (i.e. socialization, influence, power, and partnership) on three different impact scales (i.e. individual, community/inter-organisational, and national/international). The results show that most of the efforts of young people to improve educational quality in Mali are on the community scale and on the national scale. On community level the major strategy that is employed by young people is socialisation, that is, awareness-raising. On national scale the only strategy that young people use is influence through advocacy. Partnership was never mentioned as a strategy. According to teachers youth do not have a role in improving educational quality; this should be done by parents. Factors that enhance the role of youth are their rights and support by NGOs. The main barrier they face is the government, who does not take into account young people’s demands.