Algeria - Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune

, while presiding over a cabinet meeting last Sunday, ordered the adoption of the English language starting from the primary stage, and this is after "a deep study by experts and specialists", according to a statement by the Presidency of the Republic.

Algerian schools register more than 10 million students, including nearly 6 million who are affiliated with the primary stage, which extends from the first to the fifth year. (Preparatory).

In 2019, the Ministry of Higher Education announced a trend to intensify English education, as part of a phased preparation to replace it with French in postgraduate studies and the delicate disciplines that are currently taught in the foreign language.

The will of the Ministry of Higher Education was supported by the university family, waiting to find its way to gradual implementation, as sector officials assert.

Algeria taught English in the first stage of public education as an optional and limited trial, in the early nineties of the last century.

In recent years, the demands of the media, elites, education unions, and student parents’ associations have risen to the need to launch the language transition in Algeria, by moving French - albeit gradually - in favor of English in all educational stages, as it is a foreign language and not an alternative teaching language from Arabic.

Therefore, the new decision was widely welcomed at all elite, educational and popular levels, but the obsession with the first experience remains present in minds, which imposes - according to experts and partners - the provision of objective conditions to secure the process.

Break free from the French Communion

Mohamed Qamari, Professor of Linguistics at the University of "Algeria 2 - Abu al-Qasim Saadallah" emphasized that the issue of language planning falls within the strategic perspective of the state, as there is the mother language, which is one of the foundational pillars of the concept of the nation, and every failure in its right results in cracks in building the structure of the state.

Then there is the foreign language or functional languages ​​concerned with situational planning, according to the desired services in achieving the nation's strategic goals (politically, culturally, and economically...), it is a map with moving variables, and their arrangement is governed by the area of ​​interest, he said.

With a cursory look at the map of the world's language market, Qamari asks: Which languages ​​are more strategically useful for Algeria in the localization of science, in the field of diplomatic relations, culture, and in adding liquidity to economic dealings?

He answers quickly: It is certain that the eye does not mistake the presence of English at the top of the arrangement, and "the choice of the Council of Ministers cannot be understood on the basis of an emotional response, as some like to describe it. Rather, it is a strategic choice that liberates Algeria from the logic of the handling that the French perform to this day."

Mohamed Qamari considers the Cabinet's decision strategic and frees Algeria from French communion (Algerian press)

He explained to Al-Jazeera Net that this option will initially face difficulties, the most important of which is the remnants of the old generation's nostalgia for French, and the other thing is related to framing, and the problem of maintaining the decision within its political procedural perspective, and "the original is that it is a strategic decision that must be thrown through promotion within the popular bloc."

A risk or a deliberate choice?

For his part, Massoud Boudiba, the official spokesman for the Independent National Council of Teaching Users for the three-phase sector of education, believes that “the decision to include English in primary education, with the approval of the majority, cannot be risked by applying it as a partial topical in an educational system that needs reforms and updates, through a realistic diagnosis.” field".

Boudiba added to Al Jazeera Net that the decision needs in-depth studies, with the involvement of field actors, specialists and experts with comprehensive knowledge of the reality of the national education sector, while providing all the required material, human and moral capabilities.

The union leader linked the success of the choice to a pedagogical (educational) review and restructuring that would allow solving all the problems posed to the Algerian education system.

The educational expert, Masoud Amrawi, also stipulated the opening of workshops for specialists, the formation of teachers, and the preparation of a program for the model sections that it is hoped will be launched in the next school entry, as an initial experiment, until the process is generalized during the 2023-2024 season, with “the need to give it great attention, and assign it to the believers in the project.” Otherwise, the result will be the opposite.

Masoudi Amrawi warns against the French lobby's move to abort the project with flimsy justifications (Al-Jazeera)

And he stressed that securing the process requires moving away from improvisation and working in dark rooms, while defining a timetable to materialize the project, and relentless effort with specialists to prepare attractive programs and textbooks that take into account the mental development of students of this stage.

In his speech, the former member of the Parliament's Education Committee warned against the move of the "Francophile lobby, which will work hard to destroy the project, fabricating flimsy justifications," as he put it.

Shadow points and warnings

On the other hand, Jamal Daou, professor of higher education in theoretical physics at Wadi Souf University, appeared cautious in his interaction with the announced decision, stressing that the education crisis in Algeria is deep, and goes beyond the issue of adding or replacing a foreign language.

He believes that "the Algerian school today needs to first teach students the Arabic language, after its outputs have become more like literacy."

In a statement to Al Jazeera Net, Daou considered the announcement of the adoption of English in primary education vague and devoid of any details, as if "just a bubble for media consumption, leaving the door open to all interpretations."

He also said that the decision "did not clarify whether English will be an alternative second language to French or a third accompanying language, which opens the door to questions, while the guardians are supposed to resolve the matter."

In the event that English is adopted as a second foreign language, in addition to French in primary school, we will practically face a real catastrophe and total destruction for the achievement of a student who will find himself in a multilingual maze, in one or two national languages, and two foreign languages, in a social environment that has nothing to do with them for most Algerian children. , according to specialist Jamal Daou.

The speaker adds that if English is an alternative to French, similar to the experience of the nineties, then it should be part of a tight strategy, targeting the language transition smoothly and through stages and studied steps to reach the university.

Jamal Daw concluded his comment by saying that he is against the introduction of foreign languages ​​into the primary stage, because it distorts the students’ mother tongue, and creates an imbalance in their formation and identity. Rather, it is better to postpone it to the preparatory stage in pedagogy.