"Toutes les filles à l'école" (All the Girls at School): A Collaborative Approach to Creating and Sustaining Educational Opportunities for Girls in the Republic of Benin, West Africa
By Suzanne Gilmour, professor and chair, Educational Administration Department; Marcia M. Burrell, assistant professor, Curriculum and Instruction Department; and Alfred Frederick, professor, Curriculum and Instruction Department--all at the State University of New York--Oswego

In Benin, “Toutes les filles à l’école” (All the Girls at School) is written upon huge billboards, on t-shirts, and in small leaflets. It is the focus of conversation in schools and villages, during online courses and webcam meetings. Arising from recent reforms of Benin’s educational system, the public campaign for girls’ education has been a site of ongoing collaboration between the Ministry of Education in the Republic of Benin, West Africa and the State University of New York at Oswego, in concert with the New York State Association for Women in Administration (NYSAWA). This joint initiative illustrates the value of intercultural collaboration for enhancing girls’ educational opportunities.

The State of Girls’ Education in Benin

The hard work of the Ministry of Education in the Republic of Benin to increase access to education came to fruition in October 2006 when the legislature passed a measure guaranteeing all children, girls included, a free primary education through the Universal Primary School Education Initiative. This initiative is the priority of Benin President Boni Yayi, who has refocused financial resources to ensure the education of all children in primary school. Educators in Benin are now creating over three hundred new classrooms, and issues of staffing and space have risen to paramount concern. More girls are now able to attend school. Many girls, however, continue to face cultural expectations and other obstacles that prevent their attendance.

In some regions of Benin, for instance, girls are encouraged to stay at home and assume the myriad roles of daily domestic life. Boys have greater freedom from daily responsibilities and more access to schooling. Girls are often concerned about their safety in school, and only through very recent legislation has Benin’s government passed sanctions against sexual harassment of girls. Some obstacles girls face in Benin--rigid gender role expectations, gender-based restrictions on freedom, and bullying and harassment--are also faced by girls in the United States.

Given this cultural context, it is clear that mandating school for all is not sufficient--educators and policy makers must also consider gendered cultural expectations. We can’t ignore that these expectations are powerful forces within any society and must be renegotiated if girls are to attend, be included in, and remain in schools. Providing a safe school environment in which learning can occur equitably for all students, girls as well as boys, is one of many critical projects that benefit from effective transnational collaborative efforts. 

Evelyne Sossouhounto-Kaneho, minister of primary and secondary education in Benin

Steps to Collaboration

To address the issue of equitable education, seven professors from The State University of New York at Oswego (SUNY Oswego) collaborated with thirty-eight School Inspectors at the Ministry of Education in the Republic of Benin, West Africa. These School Inspectors are responsible for ensuring that Benin’s schools meet national standards. Our goal was to assist them in their task by exploring various strategies for enhancing education through our cultural exchange. Our professional learning community was based on the work of Dr. Alfred Frederick, director of the African and Brazilian Academic and Cultural Exchange through Project CLIMB (Collaborative Link for Instructor Mentoring in Benin and Brazil). Led by the Ministry’s strong emphasis on girls’ schooling (with the goal of schooling for all), we drew on our experiences as K-12 teachers and administrators to provide professional development to the Inspectors. In turn, we learned from their experiences to strengthen our work training educators at SUNY Oswego.

Throughout this collaboration Evelyne Sossouhounto-Kaneho, the minister of primary and secondary education, inspired us with her dedication to gender equity. Her colleagues Lassec Adjiboye, director of secondary education in Benin, and Benoit Ahle, coordinator of Benin’s Secondary School Curriculum Reform Project, coordinated the collaborative professional development initiative together with Alfred Frederick from SUNY Oswego. They provided the necessary context to make our teaching culturally relevant. They were also excellent translators (French to English) and hosts. Most importantly, they shared our commitment to helping all girls receive an education whose consequence would have a positive impact beyond their own lives or those of their families. Quoting a well-known proverb, Lassec Adjiboye reminded his audience at the recent NYSAWA conference, “When you educate a man, you educate an individual. When you educate a woman, you educate a whole nation.”

Engaging in Shared Dialogue

To address the need for enhanced teaching and learning, especially for girls, the team of SUNY Oswego Education faculty prepared seminars in key areas, all connected to the gender equity agenda. Our discussions helped school leaders identify their own biases related to gender and brainstorm ways to recruit girls to school and engage them effectively.

Reflecting on their leadership styles using a situational leadership instrument, the inspectors discussed the need to eliminate bias to create more equitable school environments. Participants recognized the role of teacher expectations in student learning and, using research-based strategies, identified how teachers’ biases affect learning. Participants further identified bias in current assessment practices. The workshop emphasized the benefits of using frequent and multiple forms of assessment to allow students to demonstrate their strengths. 

In addition to identifying sources of bias, participants recognized the need for curricular materials that were inclusive of girls’ interests, particularly in the realm of literacy education. Attention to literacy is essential if all students are going to be successful. Participants discussed strategies for enhancing student literacy, such as providing materials that represent multiple perspectives and experiences. During one session, the facilitator drew a Venn diagram with the components of literacy listed in one circle and Toutes les filles à l’école in the other and prompted participants to consider the intersections between literacy and gender. As Benin participants pointed out, literacy has the potential to empower, giving girls motivation, self-confidence, and opportunities for advancement in both education and careers.

Our discussions also addressed some of the physical barriers to girls’ education. The lack of sanitation and privacy (e.g. the availability of only outdoor public latrines) contribute to girls’ discomfort in school settings, discouraging them from attending school. The key to improving health and safety, and therefore educational opportunities for girls, lies in educating community members and parents--specifically regarding power relations between men and women that contribute not only to educational inequity, but also to the spread of HIV/AIDS.

In addition to providing opportunities to strategize, our discussions allowed us to examine our roles in modeling gender expectations to girls (and boys). The female inspectors pointed out that during the three hour break each day, they went to the market, went home and prepared meals, cleaned up, and returned for the afternoon session, while the male inspectors relaxed. This prompted the men to reflect on how they could better support their female colleagues, who assume multiple gendered roles in addition to their professional positions as inspectors. These gendered roles affect Benin students, who (as in the U.S.) see their teachers as role models for their own behavior.

Through our work in Benin, we also observed that a policy that aims to address one inequity may inadvertently introduce another. As participants from Benin pointed out during one dialogue, in some areas of their country, parents now send girls to school but keep boys at home to do farm work. This is an unanticipated consequence of a policy ironically designed to promote greater access to education. Such consequences illustrate the need to constantly assess a policy’s impact (whether in Benin or in the U.S.), and make adjustments accordingly to ensure full equity is achieved.

The inspectors were not the only beneficiaries of our collaboration. It was truly a cultural exchange. Our cross-cultural conversations helped everyone examine gendered behavior both in Benin and in the U.S. Each of us was more ready to question unexamined assumptions about how schools and society should operate. All of us left even more committed to a shared goal: “Toutes les filles (et les garçons) à l’école."