Medersas and Girls' Education in West

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Medersas and Girls’ Education in West and West Central Africa: The Gender Consequences of Non-State, Faith-Based Service Provision

Michele Angrist Department of Political Science Union College

*October 2017*

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Introduction

In Muslim-majority West and West Central Africa over the past several decades, private faith-based primary schools called medersas increasingly have provided communities with an alternative to state-run public schools. Medersas offer students instruction about Islam and in the

Arabic language together with modern subjects such as science, math, and social studies. In this they differ from public schools, which tend to be secular and offer instruction largely in English or French. Against the backdrop of the political science literature on the provision of social services by non-state actors, for ten Muslim-majority countries in West and West Central Africa, this study documents the reach of the medersa phenomenon at the primary level and assesses the impact of medersas on girls’ access to basic education.

The study is important because, when it comes to girls’ education, the stakes do not get higher than in this region. According to World Bank figures, globally, female adult literacy figures are lowest in Sub-Saharan Africa1. If one ranks female literacy rates in African states from high to low, of 54 states, West and West Central African countries cluster at the bottom.

Specifically, the fourteen continental member states of the West African regional body

ECOWAS, together with Chad and the Central African Republic, constitute 16 of the 20 lowest female adult literacy rates on the continent. In other words, West and West Central Africa constitute the region of the world with the absolute poorest record in terms of educating girls.

The gendered consequences of non-state provision of education – whether positive, negative, or mixed – will be especially impactful in these countries.

West and West Central Africa encompass the vast majority of Muslim-majority, Sub-

Saharan African states. States in this region that do not possess a majority Muslim population, tend possess regionally concentrated, significant Muslim minorities, such as those found in

2 northern Ghana, northern Côte D’Ivoire, and northern Cameroon. As such, nearly all play host to medersas, a private Islamic schooling trend that has become increasingly prominent in the region since the 1980s. This article examines medersas in comparative perspective, specifically focusing on the 10 majority Muslim countries in continental West and West Central Africa:

Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, the Gambia, Mali, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Chad, and

Nigeria.2

A considerable interdisciplinary literature on medersas in this region is accessible in

English and French. Yet the bulk of this literature are studies of single country cases – or even specific regions with a single country. No systematic, comprehensive analysis of the extent of primary level medersa schooling – let alone its impact on girls’ access to basic education – exists. This study thus makes two types of contributions to the literature.

The empirical contribution lies in its distillation from this vast literature of cross-national comparative data over time on the number of primary-level medersas that exist in each country, how many students they enroll, the share of primary enrollments that medersas represent nationally, and, the share of medersa enrollments that girls represent. Without the effort to collect the disparate data points in one data set, it is impossible to assess the extent of the medersa phenomenon or its import for girls. The data presented here demonstrate that medersas represent a significant portion of primary-level schooling in these countries. A conservative estimate is that medersas educate between 5 and 20% of the primary school population depending on the case. Moreover, the number of medersas and the percentage of primary schoolers educated in medersas have grown noticeably over time.

The study’s analytical contribution lies in its assessment, based on this data and the broader literature on girls’ education in the region, of what the medersa phenomenon means for

3 girls’ access to basic education. The data show that medersas across the region attract significant female enrollment. Girls represent nearly 50% of enrollments in most settings; moreover, there is evidence that medersas in some settings in fact enroll more girls than boys. Conservatively, more than half a million girls attend medersas in the region. The study argues that the medersa option is attractive to particular demographics within national populations: conservative rural families, families linked to trading and commercial enterprises, and Salafi Muslim communities. Given long standing resistance among Muslim communities in West and West Central Africa to government schools – resistance that is fueled by curricular and cultural concerns and that can be especially pronounced for girls – the following further speculates that, for many girls, the medersa option may represent the difference between acquiring basic education, and no education at all. Concerns about the quality of medersa education and the degree to which medersa-schooled females persist into secondary-level study notwithstanding, primary-level medersas on balance make an important contribution to girls’ education in West and West

Central Africa.

Politics of Non-State Welfare Provision in Global South

In past years political scientists have produced a growing literature on non-state welfare provision in the global south.3 The literature has tackled a number of key issues. Primary among these have been the consequences of increased non-state provision of social services for states’ welfare provision capacities, for the quantity and quality of services provided, for access to services (and resulting impacts on inequalities of various kinds), and for citizen-state dynamics.4

This study enters this literature in its analysis of the gender impact of the extensive provision of faith-based primary education in Muslim majority West and West Central Africa.

The literature on non-state education provision has concerned itself with a number of questions.

There has been significant international pressure, in the form of the Millennium Development

Goals and Education for All targets, for states in the global south to improve access to education, especially basic education. While some states and donor organizations have pursued cooperation with non-state providers (NSPs) in the education field to meet these targets5, others advocate improving public school systems instead due to perceived liabilities of non-state provision.

Among these is concern about school quality, as well as the potential impact of private school fee structures on gender equity in access.6

For the NSP literature focused on education, Rose has lamented the dearth of scholarship probing what non-state provision means for the ability of poor, marginalized, “hard-to-reach” children to access education and for educational outcomes. Rose notes also that the role of faith- based organizations in providing education has been under-researched (2009, 128, 133). Jennings notes that faith-based service provision has deep historical roots in Africa; in his words, “it is the state that is the latecomer, not the minaret or the steeple” (2014, 133). Indeed, Muslim holy men have been providing Islamic education in Qur’anic schools in Africa for more than a millennium, and Christian missionaries began entering the schooling arena in the nineteenth century. Jennings asserts that the NSP literature has often bracketed the faith aspect when assessing service provision, and cautions that the religious element can be central to outcomes (120). It can connect NSPs powerfully globally to networks of faith, as well as locally within communities

(120). Moreover, the values espoused by faith-based organizations (FBOs) can clash with developmental values such as gender equity, minority inclusion, and free speech (136).

The following seeks to contribute to the literature on NSP service provision in the domain of primary education and from the perspective of concerns about gender equity of access. In so doing this study responds to calls for additional research on “what kinds of inequalities are

5 established or strengthened by the non-state provision of social welfare” (Cammett & MacLean

2014, 273). It also responds to Rose’s call for more work on the consequences of faith-based forms of non-state education provision specifically for marginalized populations. As established above, West and West Central Africa are an especially appropriate theater for such scholarship given that girls in this region access education less easily than anywhere else on the globe. The narrative also heeds Jennings’ advice to keep the religious aspect front and center in the analysis, and considers the question of whether the provision of medersa education undermines developmental values. To date, gender assessments do not figure prominently in the NSP literature. This arena is central, however, because historically state institutions have played key roles in breaking down patriarchal social structures and practices through progressive legislation and the supply of judicial, educational, and welfare institutions that buttress the goal of gender equity. If states face significant competition from private providers in the field of education, the consequences for girls and women might be particularly problematic.

Medersas in West and West Central Africa

The term “medersa” (or “madrasa”) is used to refer to a wide variety of types and levels of educational institutions across the Muslim world. For the purposes of this study, the term will be used to refer to schools that provide instruction about Islam and in the Arabic language, in tandem with modern subjects (math, science, history, etc.). The language of instruction typically is Arabic, sometimes – but not always – with European languages offered as subjects. Over time and space, medersas have been overwhelmingly a private mechanism of education provision in the region. For more than a century they have occupied a critical space in the educational terrain, self-consciously differentiating themselves on the one hand from traditional Qur’anic schools,

6 and on the other hand from schools established by governmental authorities and/or Christian missionaries.

The earliest medersas were established by the two primary colonial powers in West and

West Central Africa, France and Britain, to entice indigenous students into an educational context wherein a cooperative, assimilated indigenous elite could be fashioned to help staff the colonial apparatus.7 These schools failed to attract sustained attendance due to their foreign origin and significant domestic distrust of European powers’ political and religious intentions.

Medersas began to gain real traction in the region when Muslim individuals and organizations began building them. The phenomenon began first in Anglophone West Africa, with members of the Ahmadi sect8 building schools in Ghana as early as the 1890s. In Francophone settings, medersa establishment began in the 1950s as West African students and pilgrims returned from

Mecca, Medina, and Cairo, where they had been exposed to orthodox, Salafi views on Islam, with an agenda for educational reform.9 Medersa building in the region thus came hand in hand with entrepreneurs introducing new ideas about Islam and in so doing directly challenging the dominance of the Sufi orders in West and West Central Africa. In the countries under consideration in this study, orthodox Salafism has been the dominant ideational strand animating medersa establishment.

The agenda of these medersa-builders was to create modern, orthodox alternatives to traditional Qur’anic schools. Qur’anic education had deep historical roots in the region and had been dominated by Sufi brotherhoods; the goal was (and is) to socialize children into the faith and into community norms and expectations. The basic model featured a teacher (often a Sufi marabout) who instructed students of various ages and stages, at their own pace, in memorization of the Qur’an and an understanding of the faith that was dependent on the specialized knowledge

7 of the teacher. The pedagogical emphasis tended to be on rote learning and copying of Qur’anic passages without imparting an understanding of Arabic. Students sat on the floor and used small whitewashed slates when copying Qur’anic passages.10

Medersa-builders had many criticisms of the Qur’anic model. They objected to the tradition that marabouts were believed to have specialized, mystical knowledge of the faith that only they could impart to students – a process that could take long periods of time. Often students lived with their teachers and contributed domestic labor to the household in return for their education, raising concerns about exploitation (Nyang 1984, 21). Medersa builders also chafed at the failure of Qur’anic schools to teach children an intrinsic understanding of Arabic.

They could recite the Qur’an in Arabic but translation and interpretation of passages tended to take place in local languages, not Arabic (Saul 2006, 18). For orthodox educational reformers, mastery of Arabic was critical to Muslims’ ability to directly access the core elements of the faith, a process that should not depend on the intercession of marabouts.

With respect to Western education, medersa founders rejected some elements while retaining others. In Anglophone West African countries, education was dominated by Christian missions. In Francophone West Africa schooling was provided moreso by the colonial (and then independent) government, and was secular in nature. Medersa founders rejected both models, building schools that taught (their versions of) Islam and its associated social obligations, and that took Arabic language instruction seriously – while also offering instruction in secular subjects. In so doing medersa founders adopted Western forms and methods as against those of

Qur’anic schools: they divided students into class groupings by age and advanced students through grade levels according to assessed achievements; devised daily class schedules; built classrooms with desks, chairs and blackboards; and equipped students with workbooks and pens.

It should be noted that, in West and West Central Africa, within the category of schools termed “medersas” as defined here, there lies important diversity. Most medersas are private, but some are public. Some medersas offer Western languages as subjects and/or teaching media (and call themselves “Écoles Franco-Arabes” or “Anglo-Arabic” schools as a result), while others teach exclusively in Arabic and/or local languages (Gandolfi 2003, 268). Finally, while many medersas today follow national curricular guidelines in return for governmental support and/or recognition, others operate completely autonomously with respect to programming – and fly below the radar of the state. Despite such differences, medersas represent a coherent class of institutions that occupy a distinct educational terrain in West and West Central Africa. To the

Muslim populations of this region, they offer parents an alternative to traditional Qur’anic schooling as well as to Christian or secular government schools. As will be shown, it is an alternative that has been increasingly utilized since the 1980s.

The Scale and Scope of the Medersa Phenomenon

Before assessing the impact of the medersa phenomenon for girls’ access to primary education in West and West Central Africa, it is important to establish the scope and scale of the phenomenon. Most published discussions of medersas treat single country case contexts; to this author’s knowledge there exist no published cross-national figures on how many such schools exist and how many students attend them. Table 1 collates available data points culled from available English- and French-language primary and secondary sources for the ten country cases.

As noted earlier, most medersas are private schools; in Senegal, Niger, and Guinea, however, public medersas also exist – figures for public medersas are indicated with asterisks on the table.

Table 1 Scope and Scale of Medersa Schooling

Country # of primary level # of students enrolled in % of primary students medersas primary level medersas in medersas Mali 288 198511 62,204 198516 6% 196023 318 198912 67,449 198917 37% 198124 840 200213 76,700 199718 25-33% 198725 1631 200914 121,657 200119 25% 199326 2205 201415 218,640 200820 25% 199727 240,579 200921 12-13% 200928 309,922 201422 14.2% 201429 Burkina Faso ~20 198430 15,000 198233 ~4% 200138 500 200331 34,000 200134 ~11% 201439 1700 201332 35,000 200335 7.4% 201540 81,000 200736 212,500 201537 Niger 290 200041 10,139 198446 7.7% 200252 *354 200242 11,036 198547 8.8% 200453 *482 200343 41,000 200048 11.8% 201154 533 200444 93,920 200449 653 200545 90,000 200550 241,004 201151 Senegal *71 200655 *47,585 201262 Public medersas: 215 200656 13,206 201263 1.3% of all primary *103 200957 schools64 233 200958 *175 201059 Recognized private *374 201260 medersas: 2.9% of all 229 201261 primary schools65 Guinea 44 199266 27,539 198868 ~8% 201371 142 199867 30,205 199869 + *26,493 199870 Chad 51 201372 18,20073 ~46%75 15,281 201374 1% 201376 Gambia 162 200377 50093 200378 ~11% 200380 42,838 200979 ~16% 200581 20% 200482 ~20% 200883 15% 201084 Sierra Leone ~29185 Medersas = ~13% of all (primary) schools circa 199086 Nigeria 568 Izala primary Fityan al-Islam medersas medersas in in 2000 enrolled 302,514 200087 students (all levels)89

2881 Fityan al- “…the Islamic school Islam medersas in sector in Nigeria has 2000 (all levels)88 managed to expand its role and continue to be

an educational force in the daily lives of millions of children and communities”90

Mauritania is an outlier for the region in that medersas are not part of the contemporary educational landscape. The literature on Islamic education in Mauritania91 highlights extensive networks of both Qur’anic schools and mahadras (which provide advanced traditional Islamic learning). Referring to these networks, Frede tells us that this “Mauritanian scholarly tradition is an important cultural heritage embedded in the national identity” (2014, 250). There is, by contrast, no mention of medersas in the literature. Their absence from the educational terrain may be due in part to the fact that, in 1973, Mauritania began Arabizing public schools – which had theretofore taught exclusively in French (Leclerc). The momentum of Arabization picked up pace in the 1980s, during which time primary schools began teaching in both Classical Arabic and bilingual French-Arabic tracks (World Bank 2009). As will be discussed further below, in

West and West Central Africa medersas were attractive to families who felt culturally alienated from Western-established school systems where the language of instruction was French or

English. In Mauritania there may have been less demand, therefore, for medersa-type schooling.

For the remaining nine country cases, Table 1 demonstrates several key points. First, medersas are a significant part of the educational landscape in the region. Published numbers indicate that, depending on the country case, medersas educate between 5 and 20% of the primary school-age population. The figure for Chad is significantly higher, as it likely is for northern Nigeria (medersas are concentrated geographically in Nigeria’s Muslim north).

Conservatively, such schools enroll more than 1.3 million primary schoolers in the region.

Indeed the scope of medersa education likely is much more significant than Table 1 reflects, because many of the figures are underestimates. In Mali official figures reflect only

11 government-recognized medersas. Smaller medersas tend not to pursue recognition, and medersa principals and government officials estimated in the mid-2000’s that 30-40% of children attending school in Mali were enrolled in madrasas – a figure much higher than that shown in

Table 1 (Bouwman 2006, 66).92 In Burkina Faso medersas often open clandestinely (Gerard

1997, 618; Pilon & Yaro 2004, 4), thus the number of medersas is underreported in national statistics. The figures for Niger do not include the substantial numbers of private Islamiyya medersas that have resisted the government’s efforts to recognize them and regulate their curricula (Villalón, Idrissa, and Bodian 2012a, 34).93 The figures for Senegal do not include private medersas not recognized by the state.94 The situation is much the same in Guinea, where assessments in the 1990s and beyond concluded that a significant number of medersas are not recognized, counted, or monitored by the state (Creative Associates 1993, Annex 6; American

Institutes for Research 1999, 12-13; U.S. Department of State 2013, 3).

Table 1 also demonstrates that the medersa phenomenon has grown substantially since the 1980s. In Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, the number of (known) enrolled students has increased by at least a factor of five between the 1980s and the 2000s. For the other cases, qualitative assessments bear out a similar conclusion.95 Many factors have driven this growth.

Public dissatisfaction with state-run public education systems grew in the 1980s and beyond as those systems became increasingly crippled by poor management and reduced investment

(Logan & Beoku-Betts 1996, 218), the latter typically born of economic crisis and the exigencies of structural adjustment packages.96 At the same time, increasing financial assistance from extra- regional Muslim countries and institutions became available for school-building purposes. In addition, opportunities for medersa-schooled students to obtain scholarships for further education in the Arab world grew.

Indications are that growth in the medersa sector will continue. In Mali the growth rate in the number of medersas was 14% while that of public schools was 4-6% (Bell 2015, 47). For

Burkina Faso, Sanogo reported a 54% growth rate in the number of medersas (2005, 144).

Between 1999 and 2002 in Niger the number of medersa classrooms grew by close to 20% while the number of classrooms in traditional primary schools grew by 14% (Presentation du Niger

27). Villalón, Idrissa and Bodian note that the growth rate in the number of medersas in Niger was higher than that for traditional secular francophone primary schools (2012a, 23). In the

Gambia, the growth rate in the number of primary-level madrassas was 14% between 2005-2009, whereas the growth rate during that time period for government schools was -1% (Republic of the Gambia 2011, p. 75).

Girls and Medersas

Given that medersas appear to be a significant and growing segment of the primary school sector in West and West Central Africa, what does this mean for girls’ access to schooling? Prima facie, one might imagine that the robustness of this sector would discourage girls’ education. For one, in this extremely poor region of Africa, the cost of schooling discourages enrollment, especially for girl children. Thus the growth in prominence of tuition- driven, private institutions could be problematic. Moreover, if one assumes that medersas’ faith- based ethos would appeal to more conservative families, one might also wonder if such families would privilege their male children’s education over that of their female children.

To probe these concerns and to develop a data-driven profile of medersa schooling along gender lines, Table 2 presents available data points over time for the proportion of enrolled students that are female at the primary school level. The first column contains quantitative and qualitative data on either individual medersas, samples of medersas, or medersas in specific

13 cities or regions. The second column contains national-level figures, as available, for the percentage of primary medersa enrollments that are female. The third column contains national- level figures for the percentage of public school primary enrollments that are female.

Table 2: Female Primary Enrollment Share in Medersas vs. Standard Public Schools

Case Anecdotal Medersa Data National-Level National-Level Standard Public Schools Medersa Data

1995 37% female99

In a sample (N=12) of Malian medersas: 1997 40% female 1997 41% female101 MALI 2003/04 34.9% female

2004/05 34.9% female

2005/06 37.9% female97 102 2008 45.6% female 2012 Bamako, Rive Droite neighborhoods: “…medersas recruit 2014 45.7% female100 103 more girls than boys”98 2014 46.5% female

1988 medersa Sabil El Nadja à Djibo: 30% girls

1988 medersa de Niangoloko: 25% girls BURKINA 1988 medersa de Zerbo Yacouba à Tougan: 15% girls104 FASO

2015 43.6% female106 2015 48.8% female107 1998 Bobo-Dioulasso Medersas: 33.1 % girls105

1984: Zinder inspection: 1984 35.6% female112

public medersas 34% female; private medersas 32% female108

NIGER In a sample (N=15) of Nigerien medersas: 2002 44% females110 2003/04 40.7% female

2004/05 39.1% female 2011 48% female111 2011 44% female113 2005/06 42.9% female109

In a sample (N=28) of Senegalese medersas:

2003/04 40.4% female SENEGAL 2004/05 45.0% female

2005/06 58.0% female114

2009 EFA Keur Madiabel more girls than boys in 2nd, 3rd, and 2006 50% female118 4th years115

2012 52% female119

2009 EFA Mbacke more girls than boys in each of six years of 2012 public medersas schooling116 are 53% female117

“There is today at least one medersa in each prefecture in the GUINEA n/a 2006 44.6% female121 Fouta-Djalon region, and five at Labe and its suburbs … 65 students per class (of which 30-35 are girls) are planned”120

1969 Medersa d’Am-Siégo in Abéché, Ouaddaï region: 53.2% 1960 9.2% female125

female; 3 other medersas in area: between 30-40% female122 1968 20.3% female126 CHAD

“The situation is different in the medersas and écoles franco- 1968 Ouaddaï region only 22% female127

arabes … These are the only institutions that attract more girls than boys”123 2013 56% female124 2013 42% female128

In sample (N=50): 2003: 39% female130

2003/04 40.6% female 2003: 44% female131 2004 “just under 50%” female133 GAMBIA 2004/05 41.1% female 2004: 46% female132 2004 51% female134 2005/06 42.0% female129

SIERRA 2009 SLMB Primary School Romacca: 49% female135 n/a n/a LEONE 2012: Western Area mosque schools 51% female136

Ilorin 1990s: multiple Arabic-language schools reported girls’ n/a 1988 Katsina Local Government schools NIGERIA enrollments percentages above 50%137 26.5% female142

study of a sample of 57 Islamiyya primary schools in Kano, 2012 nationally: 46% female143 Lagos, and Nasarawa: 48% female138

“Around two-thirds of Islamiyya pupils are girls …”139

“…USAID is considering scaling up their work with Islamiyah schools in Northern Nigeria, as such schools often recruit more girls than boys.”140

“In many Islamiyya schools, two thirds of the pupils are girls.”141

Table 2 indicates that girls’ enrollment shares in public schools either have achieved or are approaching parity with boys’ shares. Indeed, significant progress has been made in this regard over the past several decades. Moving to the national-level medersa figures, where multiple years of data are available (for Mali, Niger, and the Gambia), girls’ enrollment shares also show gains over time. For six of the nine cases, same-year data is available for national- level medersa and national-level public school female enrollment shares. Here we see that the percentage of medersa students that are female tends to be within 1-5 points of the public school share. In three cases (Niger, Senegal, and Chad) medersas’ female enrollment shares are higher than that of public schools. In Senegal and Chad, medersas enroll more girls than boys. The anecdotal medersa figures in column one show similar trends: female enrollment shares increase over time, are not dramatically lower than public school shares, and in some cases (in Mali,

Senegal, Chad, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria) exceed that of boys. Medersas at the primary level, therefore, are not disproportionately male institutions.

West and West Central African families show sufficient enthusiasm for enrolling their girl children in medersas that girls’ enrollments are more or less equal to boys’ region-wide. A deeper dive into the literature on education in West and West Central Africa may account for this perhaps counterintuitive finding. Regarding the concern that private school fees would harm girls’ enrollments, it turns out that medersas charge quite moderate fees relative to other types of private schools (Kobo 2016, 168). Neither is attendance at public schools without cost: uniform and supplies expenses are prohibitive for many families and act as obstacles to children’s enrollments.144 As for the concern that conservative Muslim families might not prioritize girls’ education, as the following discussion will elaborate, medersas’ curricular inclusion of Islam and

Arabic may in fact act a magnet for female enrollments in a region where Muslim communities have long regarded Western-established schools with distaste.

“Le Refus de l’École”

Prior to the era of European colonial control which began in the late 1800s, West and

West Central African populations included both Muslims and pagan followers of traditional

African religions. Pagan communities predominated in southern areas nearer to the Gulf of

Guinea. Muslims were more numerous in northern areas, to which North African traders had spread the faith through merchant networks beginning in the ninth century. With the spread of

Islam to West and West Central Africa came the use of Arabic. While Arabic was not the mother tongue of most, many learned some Arabic to practice their faith, with some becoming Islamic scholars in their own right and producing written works in Arabic (Hunwick 2004: 135). Arabic literacy and numeracy were utilized in correspondence and long-distance trade, and “[p]olitical men, merchants, and dignitaries who could not write employed the services of a Muslim cleric”

(Saul 2006: 17). Peoples in this region cultivated ties with the Middle East using Arabic as a communications medium (Ajulo 1985: 6). The emergence of intentionally Islamic states in West

Africa in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries generated a “huge mass of devotional, didactic, and legal literatures in Arabic” (Reichmuth 2000: 430).

Islam and Arabic thus were firmly established in West and West Central Africa prior to the Europeans’ arrival. These communities also had evolved a distinctive type of education in the form of Qur’anic schools, which were pervasive. In 1913, for example, there were 19,073

Qur’anic schools in northern Nigeria, with 143,312 boys in attendance (Csapo 1981: 312). By contrast, the non-Muslim populations of West and West Central Africa had not developed formal schooling prior to their encounter with European power (Westley 1992: 356). Rather,

18 communities taught their youth local knowledge and cultural norms informally and through coming-of-age ceremonies (Gardinier 1985: 333).

Britain and France introduced Western forms of education to the region beginning in the early 20th century. British officials welcomed the school-building work that Christian missionary groups carried out. The more secularly inclined French authorities directed education themselves, and missions could participate only with governmental permission and with instructors and curricula provided by the government (White 1996: 11-15). Europeans schools were comparatively well received by non-Muslim populations.145 Muslim communities, however, resisted European schools. Allowing children to attend missionary schools was to risk losing children to Christianity. Muslim northern areas of Sierra Leone rejected missionary schooling, while non-Muslim southern areas saw a comparatively rapid expansion of schools

(Sumner 1963: 231). In northern Nigeria Muslim Hausa communities resisted Western schooling, which they equated with Christianity (Csapo 1981: 312). In Muslim northern Ghana,

Western schools were strongly resisted by local communities, which preferred to send children to

Qur’anic schools instead (Csapo 1981: 317). In French colonies, Muslim communities also balked. For many, sending children to French schools meant that they would not receive an appropriate Muslim education (Kaba 1974: 156-157; Bleck 2015, 38). Schools also were seen as mechanisms through which French culture would be imposed (White 1996: 12; van Santen 2010:

287-288).

Over time, as it became clear that children educated in Western settings acquired the language and other skills required to acquire lucrative employment within the colonial administration (Yansane 1985: 353), parents relented to an extent. But in this concession to

Western education, parents made gendered decisions, both before and after independence. Boys

19 were sent to such schools more often than were girls.146 Girls were kept home for a variety of reasons, including traditions of early marriage and household divisions of labor that meant girl children had to contribute to household chores and the care of younger siblings, leaving insufficient time for schooling (Tuwor and Sossou 2008). In addition, poverty forced families to limit the number of children who attended school due to fee, supply, and uniform expenses and the opportunity cost of their labor; when families were forced to choose whom to school, they often began with males.147

Alongside such factors, after independence and through to the contemporary era, religious and cultural sensitivities continued to inform some families’ reticence to send their girl children to public schools modeled on Western lines. In these societies girls were expected to grow up to be wives and mothers primarily. Western schooling, by contrast, was perceived as preparation for formal, paid employment with the state. Males predominated in these positions.

In communities where females were not expected to leave home and pursue formal employment,

Western-style education appeared as irrelevant to most girls’ futures.148 Its perceived utility fell further during the 1980s when economic crisis, structural adjustment, and the downsizing of states reduced the probability of finding public employment.149

If schooling designed to ready students for state employment has been anathema to some parents of girls, alternatives that offered instruction in the Islamic faith – as medersas do – have been distinctly appealing. After independence, “Many conservative families hesitated to put their daughters into modern secular schools and preferred faith-based schools” (Frede and Hill 2014,

154). Villalón and Tidjani-Alou note that medersas’ “emphasis on religion has proven particularly attractive to parents of girls” (2012, 3). Education that includes Islamic content is attractive in part because it prepares Muslim women to pass on the principles of the faith and key

20 cultural values to their children (LeBlanc 2007: 42). Girls and women play crucial roles in this regard: in Muslim African communities and in the broader Muslim world, females are often seen as guardians of cultural values due to the influence they have on younger generations through their childrearing duties (Brown and Hiskett 1976, 99; Trevor 1976, 252; Abu-Lughod 1998,

243; Joseph 2000, 6-7).

Relatedly, medersas appeal to families concerned with preserving conservative social mores. Such schools allow (or require) girls to wear the headscarf when public schools often do not (van Santen 2010: 293; Bleck 2015: 98; Meunier 1995, 626). Some such schools segregate male and female students (van Santen 2010: 293; LeBlanc 1999, 496). Khayar tells us that, in the

1970s, girls who attended public school in Chad were seen as “disrespectful,” and culturally

“denatured” and “uprooted”; medersa education, he argued, “presented society with a model female who could satisfy traditionalists and modernists simultaneously” (1976, 77 translation mine). Niles found in the mid-1980s that large majorities of rural Nigerian parents objected to

Western-style education for girls because it would encourage girls to “forsake their tradition and culture” (1989: 17). The same concern regarding the perceived danger of modern public schooling is described for Mali in a much more recent era: “the modern [public] school is seen as an institution that creates attitudes and behaviors contrary to Malian values … because of this an educated female represented a threat to community stability” (Opheim 2000, 165 translation mine).

If medersa builders of the 1950s represented the leading edge of orthodox Salafi Islamic movements in the region, the 1980s and 1990s brought the increasing social salience of such conservative movements in Sub-Saharan Africa, including Izala in northern Nigeria and Niger, and Tabligh Jama’at in the Gambia. These groups seek to make African Muslims more orthodox

21 in their religious practice, and they oppose the Sufi brotherhoods that had established extremely deep roots in West Africa. Such movements are thus sometimes referred to as “reformist”, and some have doctrinal links to Wahhabism. While they typically imagine quite restrictive roles for women, such groups strongly advocate girls’ and women’s education150 and tend to object to the

Western education of girls.151 Indeed, many have gotten into the business of educating girls and women themselves.152 Izala, for example, has opened medersas all over northern Nigeria153 as well as in southern Niger. Tabligh Jama’at organizes informal learning activities for women in the Gambia.154

“Le refus de l’école” – the rejection of Western missionary and/or secular public schooling – has long been a reality among segments of society in West and West Central Africa, especially with regard to educating girls. The phenomenon helps to explain both the establishment and growth of medersa education, in that it fuels significant societal demand for the type of schools medersa founders sought to supply. Refus de l’école dynamics also help explain the substantial presence of girl children in contemporary medersa-type primary schools, as religious and cultural objections to mission or public schools are often felt more strongly for female than for male children.

Medersas: A Qualified Lifeline for Girls in Conservative Rural and Urban Communities

How, then, should the role of medersas in providing private educational opportunities be assessed, if girls’ access to education is the lens through which we are analyzing this variant of faith-based, non-state service provision? On the positive side of the ledger, given lingering “refus de l’école” dynamics and the rise of conservative Salafi social movements in West and West

Central Africa, for girls in certain conservative demographics, the availability of medersas at the primary school level may make the difference between a chance at basic education, and no

22 education at all. The primary relevant demographics include rural communities as well as trading and conservative religious communities in urban areas.

Incomes are higher in urban areas, and girls’ labor is not needed to tend to crops, or gather wood or water -- reducing the opportunity cost of sending girls to school (Wynd 1999,

102). At the same time, attitudes towards girls’ schooling are more liberal in urban areas – especially capital cities, where parents’ education is higher and where the employment-related payoffs to education appear more evident. Niles found, for example, that 92% of the women she interviewed in Kano (then northern Nigeria’s largest city) favored girls’ education, while only

75% of the women she interviewed in a rural Katsina township setting did. All of the urban women who favored education favored Western education, while more than two-thirds of the rural women who favored girls’ education opposed western education, and were instead inclined toward traditional education based on Koranic instruction (1989: 17).

Not surprisingly, then, scholarship on contemporary medersas points to their particular resonance among rural families. In Burkina Faso, Pilon and Wayack found in 2003 that most

écoles franco-arabes (EFAs) were located in rural areas, while secular and Christian private schools tended to be sited in urban areas (73). Pilon reported in 2004 that medersas and écoles franco-arabes represented 22% of private primary enrollments in urban areas, and 67% of such enrollments in rural areas (paragraph 18). Government data published in 2016 showed EFAs enrolling 68,848 students in urban areas, and 141,983 students in rural areas (Burkina Faso 2016,

95). These data suggest that rural communities are a strong constituency for such schools. For

Mali, Brenner reports that “many rural parents were more inclined to send their daughters to medersas than to state schools” and that, as a result, medersas’ presence in Mali increased the level of enrollments of girls in primary schools (2001, 285).

In West and West Central Africa, the rural demographic is a significant one to target if enrolling girls in primary school is a priority. Table 2 suggests that significant progress has been made in terms of getting girls enrolled in primary school, both public and medersa, in that girls’ presence in schools is approaching or has reached parity with boys’. Yet Table 3 demonstrates that girls’ primary net enrollment rates (e.g., what percentage of primary school-age girls are enrolled in primary school) indicate that a substantial proportion of girls still do not access primary school in this region. Table 3 also shows that girls in rural areas are much less likely than their urban peers to attend school. Moreover, with the exception the Gambia, a majority of the population resides in rural rather than urban areas.

Table 3155

Country Adjusted Net Adjusted Urban Adjusted Rural % of Enrollment Rate, Primary Female Net Primary Female Population Primary, Female Attendance Rate Net Attendance that is Rural (%) Rate (2015) Burkina Faso 67.9 78.4 33.8 70.1 Chad 68.7 57.8 29.9 77.5 Gambia, The 77.3 72.8 56.6 40.4 Guinea 72.2 73.9 37.5 62.8 Mali 57.3 64.7 33.8 60.1 Niger 58.3 68.1 24.4 81.3 Nigeria 60.0 73.5 49.8 52.2 Senegal 76.4 77.7 47.9 56.3 Sierra Leone 99.3 85.3 60.9 60.1

The literature also notes concentrations of medersas – and their resonance -- among trading and conservative religious communities in urban areas.156 Meunier’s research on Islamic schooling in Maradi, Niger is instructive in this respect. Maradi is Niger’s third largest city. It is also known as Niger’s commercial capital. It is located significantly to the east of Niger’s capital

Niamey, and its residents are largely Hausa (those in Niamey are Zarma-Songhai). The Hausa ethnic group straddles southern Niger and northern Nigeria and is known for especially

24 conservative gender norms, including practices of seclusion. The Salafi Izala movement has struck deep roots among the Hausa in both countries. Meunier calls Maradi “one of the most

Islamized cities in Niger” (628). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, medersas were founded

“essentially by strongly Islamized (often Wahhabi) large traders who wished to give their children a religious education but also the opportunity to master literary Arabic, so as to no longer depend on a marabout to explain or translate the Koran” (Meunier 1995, 630, translation mine). In the mid-1990s there were two public franco-arab medersas in Maradi. Meunier reported that he “found more girls in these medersas than in traditional (secular) public schools: for their strongly Islamized parents, it [was] preferable to send their girls to a school that [did] not detach them significantly from their lifestyle, which was heavily inflected by the faith”

(1995, 625 translation mine).

In Mali’s capital city Bamako, Bleck tells us that “many madrassas find their base constituencies in trading communities … and among those Malians who subscribe to a

“reformist” version of Islam” (2015, 37). Rive Droite residential neighborhoods have experienced significant population growth since the 1950s, growth that has put pressure on the public school system and driven up demand for private schools (Bleck 2015, 36). Villalón,

Idrissa, and Bodian note that the Rive Droite has been the principal settling destination for internal migration of populations with a reputation for strong religiosity and solid financial means derived both commerce (2012b, 37). They note that medersas are particularly numerous in this sector of the city (2012b, 10). Table 2 indicates for Mali that enrollments of girls outpace enrollments of boys in the medersas of the Rive Droite (by contrast girls represented just under

50% of public school enrollments on the Rive Droite in 2005-2007 according to Villalón, Idrissa, and Bodian 2012b, 39).

It appears, therefore, that medersas are providing an opportunity at basic education for significant conservative demographics in West and West Central Africa: girls in rural and conservative urban communities whose parents are inclined to object to Western-style public education. Linking the data from Table 1 and Table 2, if at least 1.3 million primary schoolers are enrolled in medersas in the region, and approximately half of those enrolled are female, then we are talking about more than half million girls attending medersa-type primary schools. And again, this is likely a significant underestimate. It is impossible to know how many of these girls would not attend school at all were it not for the existence of the medersa option, of course, but given the depth of refus de l’école dynamics and the salience of Salafi movements, it seems safe to assume that the match between medersas and the religio-cultural preferences of conservative communities is lowering the barriers to girls’ primary education in important ways in West and

West Central Africa.

This is not to say that one should regard medersas with an uncritical eye when it comes to girls’ education. The literature commonly notes concerns about the quality of the education delivered in such institutions. The list of concerns expressed is long. Many medersas are overcrowded, short on revenue, and lack appropriate infrastructure and pedagogical materials

(Otayek 1993, 235). The extent of teacher training, the quality of instruction in the classroom, ill- defined curricula, and an inability to evaluate student performance also can be problematic

(Gandolfi 2003, 268). Many private medersas escape state inspection and regulation, and actual classroom results with respect to achieving Arabic literacy can be disappointing (Sanogo 2005,

138).

A second concern is that girls who begin their education in medersas appear not to persist into secondary levels on par with their male counterparts (or their female counterparts in public

26 schools). Many medersas offer primary-level education but do not continue on into secondary- level offerings (Gandolfi 2003, 268). Where secondary-level medersas do function, researchers have noted that the proportion of female students in medersas drops precipitously relative to the primary level. Systematic government-provided data on enrollments in secondary-level medersas is not readily available, likely due to the fact that there are fewer such institutions at the secondary level. Anecdotally, however, Brenner observed in 2001 for Mali that:

… the proportion of female to male pupils in the two systems is virtually the same in the first cycle of studies … at about one-third girls to two-thirds boys in 1990- 1. However, in the second cycle (years 7-9), the percentage of girls in the médersas drops to about 20%, although it remains at about 35% in the state schools (2001, 235).

In 2012 for Mali Villalón, Idrissa, and Bodian find that in medersas at the high school level, boys become more numerous than girls (39). Although outside of the cases presented here, Cote d’Ivoire has an extensive medersa presence in its Muslim northern regions. There, Le Blanc finds that “While female students are more numerous in the lower-level classes, they are very few in the upper-level classes” (1999, 496). Many families remove girl children from medersas before secondary school, either to marry or to help at home with domestic and child-rearing work

(Kone-Dao 2005, 456; Le Blanc 1999, 496).

Conclusions

In a very poor region of the world characterized by extremely weak states, medersas make a tangible contribution to girls’ education at the primary level. Indeed, for girls in certain conservative communities, they may represent a lifeline – the difference between a basic education and no formal education at all. Indeed, increasingly in recent years outside actors like

UNICEF, UNESCO, and others have been investigating ways that states can tap into and

27 leverage existing, robust networks of Islamic education in the region – not only medersas but also Qur’anic schools – to achieve Education for All targets.

In this part of Africa, there exists a distinctive historical legacy wherein populations have felt religiously and culturally alienated from and indeed “refused” the imposition of modern education by Western actors. Medersa education, whether privately or publicly supplied, resonates with citizens’ preferences in this sense, and their supply represents a democratization of educational provision to the extent that they provide many families with a valued alternative to the public schools that they profoundly distrust. Indeed, this finding echoes Cammett and

MacLean’s discussion of the potential for state and non-state service provision together “to enable an improved match between local citizen needs and preferences, on the one hand, and service availability, on the other hand” (2014, 269).

Reflecting further on Cammett and MacLean’s concern that non-state provision of social services might create or sharpen inequities, the data provided here is reassuring in that girls access medersas on balance as much as boys do. Families send their girls (and boys) to medersas because they want their schools to provide religious and moral guidance, because they want their children to become literate in Arabic, the language of the Qur’an, and because they are anxious to preserve their cultural status quo rather than see it upended by schools modeled on Western forms and offering primarily Western curricula. Jennings is correct when he argues that the religious element of faith-based private service provision is central to outcomes and should not be overlooked. The faith-based foundation of medersa education connects such schools strongly to their local communities as well as to global networks, the latter represented by the funding and scholarship opportunities that Muslim nations outside the region offer to medersas and their students.

At the same time, however, the analysis presented here makes it quite clear that medersa education is a phenomenon that reflects conservative gender norms. Indeed, one can argue that such norms are preserved and further enabled by medersa education. Jennings’ concern that the values of non-state service providers may clash with developmentalist values such as gender equity thus seems well founded here. For some, medersas’ enabling of continuing conservativism will be a discouraging fact militating against the promotion and extension of medersa education and new state policies to harness its benefits. For others, if the alternative for some sectors of girl children is no education at all, medersa education might be judged to be of distinct utility. Such institutions do arguably make education provision more inclusive in this region. Moreover, it is possible that educating girls in medersa contexts will not consign them and their societies to continued unmoving conservatism.

Umar’s work on northern Nigeria’s especially robust network of private Islamic education at the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels teaches us that large numbers of females pursue advanced education through these channels and then go on to employment as teachers at all levels (including tertiary). Some even pursue careers as ulama (Muslim clerics who preach, write, counsel communities, and preside over religious ceremonies and rituals). He writes:

Predictably, some female Islamic scholars favour modernist views and some adopt more traditional views, particularly on gender issues such as family planning, women’s participation in public life, etc. It seems very likely that career Muslim women with advanced Arabic/Islamic learning will change traditional gender roles and expectations, but the exact trajectories remain to be seen (2003, 156).

While this observation will not be wholly reassuring to skeptics, if progressive change vis-à-vis social norms regarding women’s roles is to occur in these conservative communities, arguably they are more likely to be advanced by female voices educated within the communities’ own traditions than by those educated in institutions perceived as alien, hostile, and Western. In a

29 region where state institutions are perceived thus, the state will be less able to effect social change; that task may be one that must be left instead to grassroots dynamics.

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1 See World Development Indicators Online (http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators). 2 Nigeria’s Muslim population is just under 50% but is projected to surpass that mark in the very near future. 3 See, for example, Cammett and MacLean 2014, Kushner and MacLean 2015. 4 See Tooley and Dixon 2006, and Cammett and MacLean 2011. 5 See Rose 2009. 6 See Tooley & Dixon 2006, pp. 445-446. 7 The French built medersas in Mali, Senegal, and Mauritania; the British did so in Sierra Leone, the Gambia, and Nigeria. See Fisher 1969, Kobo 2016. 8 The Ahmadiyya sect in Islam originated in South Asia and is seen by orthodox Sunni Muslims as heretical. 9 For background, see Kaba 1974. 10 For more on Qur’anic schools, see Ware 2014. 11 Brenner and Last 1985, p. 441. 12 Cissé 1992, p. 130 13 Hardy 2010, p. 823 fn 12. 14 Hardy 2010, p. 823 fn 12. 15 République du Mali 2014, Table A.1.1. 16 Brenner and Last 1985, p. 441. 17 Cissé 1992 p. 130. 18 Lange et Diarra 1999, p. 171. 19 Hardy 2010, p. 823 fn 12. 20 Pearce, Fourmy, and Kovach 2009, p. 39. 21 Hardy 2010, p. 823 fn 12. 22 République du Mali 2015, p. 54. 23 Bleck 2013, p. 384. 24 Hardy 2010, p. 823 fn 12. 25 Hardy 2010, p. 823 fn 12. 26 Brenner 1993, p. 164. 27 Easton & Peach 1997, p. 15. 28 Hardy 2010, p. 823 fn 12; Bleck 2015, p. 90; Pearce, Fourmy, and Kovach 2009, p. 13. 29 République du Mali 2014, Table A.1.1. 30 Otayek 1984, p. 308 fn 16. 31 Gandolfi 2003, p. 269. 32 Konditamdé 2013. 33 Otayek 1993, p. 235 “Mais ce chiffre est certainement bien en dessous de la verite.” 34 Pilon 2004 math.

35 Gandolfi 2003. 36 Pilon and Yaro 2004 math. 37 Burkina Faso 2016, p. 47. Burkina has EFAs and medersas. The vast majority of enrollments in public statistics are in EFAs (Pilon and Yaro 2004, pp. 4-5). 38 Calculated from Pilon 2004, paragraphs 17 and 18. 39 Calculated from Konditamdé 2013 + p. 18 of Burkina Faso 2015 (est share of private enrollments represented by medersas at 60 instead of 71%) plus Pilon and Wayack 2003, p. 83 report decennial projection of 20% private enrolments by 2010 and note that growth was going to come from medersa sector here. 40 Burkina Faso 2016, p. 47. 41 Villalón, Idrissa, and Bodian 2012a, p. 36. 42 Jallade and Cavicchioni 2005, p. 158. 43 Presentation du Niger, p. 27. 44 Moussa 2006, pp. 9-10. 45 Villalón, Idrissa, and Bodian 2012, p. 36. 46 Triaud 1988, p. 155. 47 Triaud 1988, p. 155. 48 Villalón, Idrissa, and Bodian 2012a, p. 36. 49 Moussa 2006, p. 10. 50 Villalón, Idrissa, and Bodian 2012a, p. 36. 51 République du Niger 2012, p. 388. 52 Presentation du Niger, p. 8. 53 Moussa 2006, p. 10. 54 Derived from République du Niger 2012, p. 388. 55 République du Sénégal 2007, p. 27. 56 République du Sénégal 2007, p. 27. 57 Villalón and Bodian 2012, p. 34. 58 D’Aoust 2013, p. 10. These are officially recognized private medersas (adhering to national curriculum therefore). Almost half of these are in Dakar. 59 D’Aoust 2013, p. 2. 60 D’Aoust 2013, p. 10. 61 République du Sénégal 2014, p. 58. [Al Azhar~200 2004-are these recognized?] JIR has 10 (website) 62 République du Sénégal 2014, p. 57. 63 République du Sénégal 2014, p. 58. 64 Villalón and Bodian 2012, p. 13. 65 Villalón and Bodian 2012, p. 13. 66 American Institutes for Research 1999, p. 11. 67 American Institutes for Research 1999, p. 11: these 142 are out of 465 total recognized private primary schools, or 31%. 68 Salvaing 1992, p. 431. 43

69 American Institutes for Research 1999, p. 68. 70 American Institutes for Research 1999, p. 68. These are public franco-arabic school enrollments. 71 Calculated from American Institutes for Research 1999, p. 11 31% figure and République de Guinée 2015, p. 13 27% figure. 31% is very conservative. 72 Official number of “Private Islamic schools” in state statistics. République du Tchad 2015, p. 39. See République du Tchad 2012 for context. These would be authorized and running the state curriculum. Would miss a lot of medersas. Very urban too I think. 73 Gandolfi 2003, p. 269; UNESCO 1993, p. 17. 74 République du Tchad 2015, p. 48. 75 Calculated from Gandolfi 2003, p. 269. 76 République du Tchad 2015, p. 48. See République du Tchad 2012 for context. These would be authorized and running state curriculum. Would miss a lot of medersas. Very urban too I think. 77 Sarr and Hydara 2005, p. 22. 78 Sarr and Hydara 2005, p. 22. 79 Republic of Gambia 2011, p. 75. 80 Republic of Gambia 2004, p. 11. 81 International Monetary Fund 2006, p. 33. 82 UNESCO n.d. 83 International Monetary Fund 2011, p. 27. 84 UNESCO 2010, p. 4. 85 Calculated from: Wikipedia 2017 (186 Ahmadiyaa primary schools); Skinner 1983, p. 11 (40+ MB schools by 1970s); and Skinner, 2010 p. 102 (Ansarul Islamic Mission 65 primary schools). 86 Calculated from Table 1 box on # of schools together with Banya 1993, p. 160 figure of 2262 primary schools total in 1993. 87 Umar 2004, p. 107. 88 Umar 2001, p. 131. 89 Umar 2001, p. 131. 90 Abd-El-Khalick, Boyle, and Pier 2006, p. 5. 91 See Hamès 1997, Fortier 1997 & 2003, Lydon 2004, Frede 2014, Ould Ahmedou 1997, and UNESCO 1993. 92 Bouwman notes for example that while Bamako, the national capital, has 139 recognized medersas, many estimate that hundreds more non-recognized medersas exist in Bamako. 93 To give a sense of the scale of what is not counted, Meunier (1995, 625 & 628) tells us that in the city of Maradi in 1995, there existed 2 public medersas, one recognized private medersa, and approximately 33 nonrecognized medersas. 94 See D’Aoust 2013. 95 Need to document this. 96 See Stromquist 1999 for the impact of structural adjustment on education in Sub-Saharan Africa. 97 Moussa and Benett 2007, p. 26. 98 Villalón, Idrissa, and Bodian 2012b, 38-39 (translation mine, emphasis in the original). 99 Sy and Lam 1997, p. 3. 44

100 République du Mali 2014, Table A.2.1. 101 Cissé et al. 2000, p. 32. 102 Pearce, Fourmy, and Kovach 2009, p. 4. 103 République du Mali 2014, Table A.2.1. 104 Cisse 1990, p. 67. 105 Gerard 1998, p. 202 (this figure was 47.7% for public schools in Bobo-Dioulasso). 106 Burkina Faso 2016, p. 95. 107 Burkina Faso 2016, p. 59. 108 Triaud 1988, p. 155. 109 Moussa and Benett 2007, p. 27. 110 Alidou 2005, p. 77. 111 République du Niger 2012, p. 388. 112 Alidou 2005, p. 71. 113 République du Niger 2012, p. 388. 114 Moussa and Benett 2007, p. 27. 115 Villalón and Bodian 2012, p. 35. (“EFA” stands for École Franco-Arabe). 116 Villalón and Bodian 2012, p. 35. 117 République du Sénégal 2014, p. 12. “The director general of al-Azhar estimated that in 2004 half the students in his school were girls” (Babou 2016, p. 188). “The effort to hire women teachers at al-Azhar and other Islamic educational institutions is certainly stimulated by the growing number of young girls frequenting those institutions and the push from UNESCO and other international bodies for the schooling of girls” Babou 2016, pp. 187-188. [Azhar network of schools = founded by a Murid cheikh] 118 République du Sénégal 2007, p. 37. 119 République du Sénégal 2013, p. 46. 120 Salvaing 1992, p. 436 (translation mine). 121 République de Guinée 2007, p. 8. 122 Khayar 1976, pp. 96-97. 123 van Dalen 2003, p. 19 (translation mine). 124 République du Tchad 2015, p. 48. 125 Khayar 1976, p. 89. 126 Khayar 1976, p. 90. 127 Khayar 1976, pp. 94, 100. 128 République du Tchad 2015, p. 48. 129 Moussa and Benett 2007, p. 26. 130 UNESCO n.d., p. 1. 131 Sarr and Hydara 2005, p. 22. 132 Republic of Gambia 2004, p. 11. 133 Republic of Gambia 2004, p. 11.

134 International Monetary Fund 2006, p. 34. 135 Mbayo 2011, p. 198. 136 Tooley and Longfield 2013, p. 15. The figure for government schools in the Western Area, same year, is 52%. 137 Reichmuth 1993, p. 189. 138 Abd-El-Khalick, Boyle, and Pier 2006, p. 9. 139 British Council 2014, p. 12. 140 Nigeria Federal Ministry of Education. 2015, p. 53. 141 UKAID n.d., p.1. 142 Pittin 1990, p. 15. 143 Nigeria Federal Ministry of Education 2015, p. 46. “Moreover, substantial gender gaps exist in primary school, particularly in the north. Only 40% of primary school age girls are enrolled in some northern states compared with 80% in the southeast” p. 50 “Nigeria had the highest number of out-of-school children in the world. The survey showed that one (1) out of every three (3) school-age children was out of school. The problem was said to be more in the North and girls constituted the higher proportion of out-of-school children.” P.74 “Nearly two-thirds of women in the North West and North East regions have no education, compared to less than 15% in the South” British Council 2014, p. 5. 144 See, for example, Glick and Sahn 2000, p. 65-66. 145 See van Santen 2010, p. 276, and Bolt and Bezemer 2009, p. 32. 146 Qualitative evidence that families kept girls out of Western schools in West Africa is supplied by Alidou 2011: 49, 54-55; van Santen 2010: 280, 295-296; Abubakari and Anamzoya 2013: 173; Frede and Hill 2014: 154; Johnson 1976: 214-215; Trevor 1976: 252; and Pittin 1990: 12. 147 Glick and Sahn find in Guinea, for example, that increases in household income increase females’ educational attainment but not males’ (2000, 76). 148 See, for example, Niles 1989, p. 14. 149 For more on the impact of structural adjustment on public sector employment in Sub-Saharan Africa, see Stromquist 1999. 150 See Frede and Hill 2014, 148; Larkin & Meyer 2006; Kane 2003; Umar 2004; LeBlanc 2007, 42. 151 See Alidou 2011, pp. 54-55 and Kone-Dao 2005, p. 456. 152 For Izala, see Badran 2011, p. 195; Kane 2003, p. 140; Pittin 1990, p. 22. For the Gambia see Janson 2013, 104. 153 Badran 2011, p. 195. 154 See Janson 2013. 155 “Total number of students of the official primary school age group who attended primary or secondary education at any time during the reference academic year, expressed as a percentage of the corresponding population.” Adjusted Net Enrollment Rates are taken from the World Bank’s Education Statistics database http://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?source=education-statistics-~-all-indicators. Values are for 2015, except for Guinea (2014), Chad (2013), and Nigeria (2010). Adjusted Net Attendance Rates are taken from the same database. Values range from years 2003-2007 depending on the country. % Rural Population is from World Bank World Development Indicators http://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?source=world-development- indicators. 156 There can be considerable overlap between these communities.