Education on agenda in election campaigning
Côte d'Ivoire’s presidential election is five years overdue, but after six delays, it's now slated for 31 October. As the country enters its first week of election campaigning our second report of a series takes a look at the lost generation of youth.
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Once the pride of West Africa, Côte d'Ivoire's schools and universities have fallen into ruin. Class sizes have exploded, entrance exams are notoriously corrupt and even those lucky few to graduate have a difficult time finding work.
The government's own figures put youth unemployment at 37.5 per cent for men and a staggering 70.3 per cent for women under 25.
Report - Côte d'Ivoire - The lost generation
Opposition candidate Alassane Ouattara is in the northern city of Bouaké, where he enjoys strong support and expects to pull 60-75 per cent of the vote.
During his short campaign stop he spoke directly to the city's youth.
“You've been left behind,” he said. “No university and college classes, no work even if you have a diploma.”
He promised to open multiple new universities across the country and to encourage companies to hire young people.
It's a message people in Bouaké are receptive to because since 2002 and the outbreak of civil war the local university has been shuttered.
“For the last 10 years, the education system has become corrupt under President Laurent Gbagbo. His supporters get all the spots at universities, while the majority of youth suffer without a job or an education,” says Jean-Paul N'gura, a 24-year-old from Bouaké.
“Nowadays, you have to pay to pass university entrance exams,” says Zuzu Koimeleon, an Ouattara supporter. The ENA [National Administration School] costs two million West Africa Francs or about 3,000 euros.
“Other schools are even more expensive,” he says. “Three million for moyen superieur [high school], or four million for polytechnique [technical school].”
“If I had that kind of money, I'd start a business, I wouldn't buy my way into school. In our parent's time, it wasn't like this, he says, everything was based on merit.”
Even Gbagbo has admitted that there is a problem. He fired the head of ENA for having sold enrolment spots. He did the same at the national police academy.
Fighting youth unemployment, he says, starts with providing a better, cheaper, more accessible state-funded education. And he too is pledging to open new universities.
In Abidjan at the university campus Gbagbo student supporters have something different to say about his record on education.
“I think that those charges are unfounded, he says. If you're an opposition supporter you'll obviously blame everything on Gbagbo,” says Joseph Yao Kouassi, a management student.
“Gbagbo was prevented by a civil war from improving the education system,” says Kouassi, who’s enroled at the University of Bouaké, which has in fact been based in Abidjan since the civil war broke out in 2002.
“Now that the war is over, he'll have a chance to really improve things,” he says
From what little he's seen of Laurent Gbagbo’s potential as a leader, he's sure that he'll improve things for young and old alike.
“When you invite someone over to eat, you can tell what kind of a person he is from the way he washes his hands,” he says, citing a Baoulé saying.
In the north and the south, youth are eager to see whether the promise of new universities will be fulfilled. Rendezvous 31 October.
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