An Academic Calendar, a “Way-Way” School Year –

A rushed start to the course, visibly improvised and much earlier than usual, on 1^is September, an illegible school calendar, without real reference points and to add to the cacophony, an end of term in total confusion. There was crestfallen expression in many schools on Saturday, where parents of particularly angry students could be seen. For good reason, they were unable to collect the end of term report cards for their level 6 children.^th5^thSecond and First.

It’s D-Day, in the schools that the parents of the students have discovered completely disoriented, notes postponing the delivery of report cards to the students of the levels indicated above, posted here and there in the schools of Greater Libreville notably. Others, on the other hand, confided that they had been informed just the day before, on the forums of the EPAs to which they belong.

The sinister expression, Viviane N., in her forties, mother of a student enrolled 5^th at Nelson Mandela High School, understands nothing of what he describes as ”contempt” towards the parents and clearly showed his dissatisfaction. “I understand that the calendar for the academic year was published a long time ago and we were informed that the bulletins were handed out today. It’s really a lack of consideration for the parents of students that we are by wandering around like this and a guilty and unacceptable amateurism on the part of the Ministry of National Education”she dryly fumed.

Many administrators and teachers met in schools in Greater Libreville, speaking on condition of anonymity, report that the decision to withdraw 6th grade classes^th5^th2^nde et 1^eraof the bulletin submission sessions for the first quarter, was decreed at the last minute by ministerial supervision and postponed for before Christmas, between December 14 and 21, 2024.

It concerns, they confided, beyond Greater Libreville, all the school districts of the country and would emanate from ministerial supervision, for good reason ”irregularities on APCs” (competence-based approaches), without further details. Clearly, this means that the teaching and evaluation of students at the levels concerned were organized on the basis of non-approved and validated programs.

If this is true, this decision does not fail to raise legitimate concerns, as much as it raises questions. How could we allow courses to take place for an entire term with irregularities in the programs or PAC? But how was it possible to organize homework and evaluations even though they were likely to be canceled for non-compliance?

As paradoxical as it may seem, the grades and results for level 6^th5^th2^nde et 1^era retained and not communicated, are known to parents and students themselves; since available on the X-GEST platform. So what will happen now? So many responses awaited by the educational community, particularly by parents of students.

Beyond this incident, the Ministry of National Education should lift the veil on a number of incongruities noted during the current school year, marked in particular by enormous pitfalls, the grossest of which concerns the glaring lack teachers of scientific subjects, maths and physical sciences in particular, in sensitive series and classes, in almost all of the country’s public schools, notably the most emblematic ones such as the Lycées Léon Mba, Paul Indjendje Gondjout or Nelson Mandela, etc., while the first trimester is consumed.

To tell the truth, this school year couldn’t be any more ”Way-Way”with a calendar coming out of nowhere. By way of illustration, children currently benefit from a week of vacation, called intermediate, which nothing or even no local reality justifies.

In France, which is the least poorly known example in our tropics and where this period is “free” for schools, coincides with the cold peaks, the harsh period of the winter season currently experienced there and during which is suitable for keeping little ones warm.

M.-O. Cute