OPINION OF RELIGIOUS CHIEFS IN CHARGE OF KORANIC TEACHING AND LOCAL POPULATIONS ABOUT CHILDREN’S EDUCATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOL OR “THE WHITE’S SCHOOL” IN

Till recently, the Delta people have remained rebellious to school in the Macina located in the Mopti region in Mali. Rightly or wrongly, this school promoted by the State is considered as a “White’s school” in which the children who are sent are considered as unbelievers who will go “to Hell tomorrow” in the next world. Is it a myth for a Macina child to go to the public school or “the White’s school”? The subject remains a concern for traditional leaders, coranic school teachers and local populations.
The main reason comes from colonization. Modern school has been introduced by the colonizer. This is to say, first, that it’s a tool of the winner on the defeated group. After, the language that is taught is written from left to right. As for Arabic, it’s written from right to left. Culturally, what is done by the left hand or comes from the left is negatively seen and symbolizes evil. For example, one does not eat with the left hand ; nobody is introduced with the left hand. In other respects, the winners are considered as unbelievers. And, sending one’s child to their school means sending one’s child to Hell !
As for literacy in Fulfulde, (the most spoken language in the Macina and in most of the Delta agglomerations), people were on their guard at the beginning, arguing that the Imam is not the one who teaches it. They think that behind all this there is the colonizer, because here, too, writing is from left to right. On the whole, we are facing a mentality based on the traces of the Dina that is confronted with a deep identity crisis. We are not able to make a difference between our authentic culture and modernity that implies the practice of new occupations leading to new behaviors. These new behaviors coming from the impact of cultures with modern school cannot make us forget who we are and where we come from.
Those who refuse to send their children to school, doing their utmost to perpetuate the practices of the Dina (koranic teaching they practice in a new context of Independences, Democracy and Decentralization) are reduced to beg from department to department, to send their koranic learners to beg from family to family, from street to street, falling in delinquency, violence. To be a marabout, presently, is not enough for feeding oneself. This koranic teaching does not lead to a job in a society where old markers are getting lost.
We are getting more and more involved in individualism, a withdrawn attitude with overall economic situation, climate risks, the reduction of our immense potentialities in growing land, water, livestock ; which leads to the erosion of values like mutual aid, altruism, solidarity that characterized our societies built on the base of goods collectivization and individual’s socialization. Is the new democracy started in 1991 in Mali going to reinforce this individualism in the image of “the Whites’ school” or promote the taking in account of cultural and religious values of social education?