Administration and Government
Senegal has fallen far behind in the education of its children. Few children who attend school stay for more than a few years. This classroom may be the setting for a free education, but supplies, bus fares, and books, combined with the loss of the children’s help in the home encourage them to leave schooling early.
schools receive some government funding. Today, they are declining in importance, however, because of competition from the French, or the modern school. Since independence, the government has supported modern education. As an incentive civil servants who send their children to French schools receive a special allowance. The Senegalese education system is inherited from the French. Its system goes from kindergarten through university level. Kindergarten is private and is an optional three-year program; it starts at the age of two or three and ends at the age of five or six, depending on the child’s performance. Often, Koranic schooling takes the place of French-style kindergartens.
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