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EDUCATION IN TOGO: POTENTIALS AND CONSTRAINTS
FOR DEVELOPMENT
An Independent Study Geography Department at Mount Holyoke College
Dr. Girma Kebbede, Adviser
by Ariane Khalfa May 7, 2012
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Preface
My curiosity about alternative educational models grew the summer of 2011, when I
spent three months as an intern with Center for Assistance to the Deprived and Orphaned
(CADO), a local francophone NGO based in the remote, tropical village of Agou-Avedje in
southern Togo. Interested in hearing opinions and suggestions on local development initiatives
from the most vulnerable members of the community, I collaborated with a colleague and
interviewed 250 women in 11 villages and farms, determining their difficulties and solutions
they envisaged for the community. After analyzing principle challenges and conditions facing
women and their families in rural villages, we designed development projects that would be
successful given the community’s circumstances and ideas. Every project we designed was
rooted in the hypothesis that better education would drastically improve the situation of these
underserved populations.
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my sincere thanks to:
• Mount Holyoke College, for providing the opportunity of an expense-paid internship;
• The Miriam C. Camps Fund in collaboration with Mount Holyoke College’s Career Development Center for offering me an internship grant and follow-up guidance;
• The organization "France Volontaires" for coordinating my contact with Togolese NGOs.
• The Center for Assistance to the Deprived and Orphaned (CADO) and its staff, for the logistical organization of the study;
• Koku Evénunyé Degboe for his collaboration in the fieldwork and language interpretation;
• The people in the Togolese villages and farms where I conducted my study for their hospitality and their readiness to answer questions;
• My faculty adviser, Girma Kebbede for providing guidance, patience, and resources.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Statement of Purpose
I. Section I – Overview
a. Personal Note: My Trip to Togo
b. Development Potentials and Constraints in the Agou Prefecture
c. CADO: A Togolese Development Agency
d. Fieldwork Overview
e. Context: History of Togo and Francophone West Africa
II. Section II – Empirical Results from Fieldwork
a. Water Supply and Sanitation
b. Health and Hygiene
c. Education
d. Socio-economics
e. Conclusion
III. Section III – Education & Policy Recommendations
a. Policy Recommendations Addressing the “Triple Crisis”
b. Theories of Development in Literature
c. Complementary Education Models
Conclusion
Annex
Works Cited
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Introduction
On October 6, 2008, Togolese primary school students began the new academic year
free-of-charge under the government’s new policy waiving tuition fees for primary school thanks
to an $80 million investment in their education system. Many parents received the news with
cheers of joy. However, the new finances were not supplemented by a restructuring of the
education sector, making it difficult for teachers to prepare for the influx of new students. Four
years later, Togo is still struggling to manage all public school efforts—especially primary
education in rural areas. Parents are still paying education fees for their primary school children,
and most new educational policies are failing in terms of implementation due to the lack of
equality within the system. Low-quality education, poor learning outcomes, low student
retention, lack of teacher qualification, and high pupil/teacher ratios remain prevailing concerns
in the education sector. Complementary education models may present the best solution to
providing quality access to education in underserved areas of Togo.
Development experts have debated for decades the causes and effects of the crisis of
inequality and poverty facing disproportionate numbers of people in developing countries around
the world; the search continues for effective methods to improve the livelihoods of those residing
in such precarious regions. In the decades following its independence from France in the 1960s,
Togo has remained a fragile state—crippled by underdevelopment, poverty, and inequality. It is
no doubt that a mixture of historical, cultural, geographical, political, and economic factors may
be contributing to the cycle of underdevelopment gripping this country. While the
interdisciplinary nature of the crisis indicates that holistic change is needed, education is perhaps
the most promising long-term solution, in that it not only fuels transformation in all other areas
of development through ripple effects, but it produces new knowledge and provides people with
the key to their own freedom. As William Allin reasoned, "education is not the answer to the
question. Education is the means to the answers to all questions."
In 1990, a broad coalition of national governments, development agencies (like the World
Bank and UNESCO), and civil society groups formed the Education for All (EFA) international
initiative committing “to bring the benefits of education to every citizen in every society.” In the
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year 2000, after a decade of slow progress, 189 countries united to support the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs), and reaffirmed EFA as a vital stepping-stone to global
development. As the 2015 deadline for achieving human development goals and reducing
poverty and inequality by 2015 approaches, we must reassess the initiatives taken, determine the
role of the different actors, and see how much progress has been made.
Statement of Purpose
This paper argues that by focusing on a holistic transformation and improvement of the
purpose, structure, and methods of education in Togo, its people can more actively collaborate to
ensure that they fuel progressive, long-term development in every sector of the country. This
paper is divided into two sections. First, I will explain how I came to develop a deep personal
and professional connection with Togo. Second, I will provide the relevant background and
history of Togo and other francophone West African nations. Third, I will present the empirical
results of a 2-month survey that I conducted in Togo’s Agou Prefecture in the summer of 2011.
Next, I will present a review of pertinent development literature. The second main section of the
paper focuses on education as the most essential solution to Togo’s development crisis. But first,
my story begins here.
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SECTION I – OVERVIEW
Personal Note: My Trip to Togo
How did I end up in Togo? Togo is, after all, one of the smallest countries of West
Africa—a vertical sliver sandwiched between Ghana and Benin, bordered on the north by
Burkina Faso, and on its southern coast by the Gulf of Guinea. It is a tropical, sub-Saharan
African country but because of its length and orientation, it covers 5 different landscapes and
climates, starting from tropical in the south and ending with a rolling savanna in the north.
Compared to its neighbors, Togo remains one of the most underdeveloped countries in West
Africa, whose economy is highly dependent on agriculture. Over half the population lives below
the poverty line of $1.25 per day. Togo’s national highway is the only paved road, running from
its capital, Lomé in the south, to Burkina Faso in the north. Togo’s official language is French,
but it is only used in formal settings, school, commerce, and when communicating across
different ethnic groups. The population is comprised of approximately 40 different ethnic groups,
each with a different spoken language. The most prominent spoken language in Togo is Ewe,
spoken by over a million people in the south. I ended up working the south, in an Ewe village not
far from Kpalimé at the foot of Mt. Agou.
Since my teenage years, I have been reading journals that Peace Corps volunteers have
written while they were living abroad. My love for the French language coupled with my deep
concern for social problems and poverty led me to become more interested in the region of
French-speaking Africa and the Caribbean. At university, I began taking classes in geography
and francophone studies, where I was able to learn more about francophone African culture. It is
during this time that I decided to specialize my studies in West Africa, and find a way to visit the
region. On many occasions, I had heard Togo referenced as the “hidden gem of Africa,” and as
one of the most hospitable and peaceful countries in West Africa. Togo topped my list in my
search for organizations abroad. I received the Miriam C. Camps fellowship from Mount
Holyoke College to pursue an internship in West Africa the summer of 2011. France Volontaires,
an organization which connects French volunteers to local organizations in francophone
countries, forwarded my message requesting an unpaid internship position at a local
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development agency along to several organizations. I promptly received an email response from
Sena Dzahini, director of the Center for Assistance to the Deprived and Orphaned (CADO),
telling me about his NGO and the wide range of sustainable development projects they pursue.
Not only is CADO officially registered with the Togolese government, Sena Dzahini is president
of the coalition of NGOs representing the Agou Prefecture. I also noticed that CADO had many
regional and international partners, and had collaborated on projects with several Peace Corps
volunteers, Engineers Without Borders of Denver, Colorado, and a Belgian NGO along with
others. Sena sent me the contact information of CADO’s partner organizations and previous
volunteers. After contacting them, I exchanged frequently by email with Sena verifying details
and plans until my departure.
At the time, I was finishing my junior year abroad in Montpellier, France, so I flew
directly to Togo, where Sena and his employees welcomed me to their village, Agou-Avedje,
situated at the foot of Mt. Agou, in the tropical, Plateau region of southern Togo. The village
does not have electricity or running water, but thanks to local development initiatives, the village
owns 6 wells, ecosanitary latrines, solar panels, a health center, and a nursery, primary, and
middle school, and a mutual fund for health and agriculture, all installed and built by CADO and
its partner organizations.
After a few weeks of living in the village and learning about CADO’s projects, I realized
that I was only meeting men and young men my age who seemed to actively participate in the
community development process. I noticed that the women kept to themselves, and were always
busy at the market, in the fields, fetching wood, or in their houses doing domestic work and
taking care of the children. They did not communicate much with me, and I only heard them
speaking in their local language. Unlike most of the men in the village, the women did not speak
French, and the younger women spoke French much more poorly than their male counterparts.
I met Claire through her father Basile, one of CADO’s solar panel engineers. Claire is 16
years old but because of malnutrition she appears only 13-years-old and is 5 years behind in her
education compared to western standards, which is typical of most children in the village. What
struck me most was that her level of French was much lower than that of boys her age; she talked
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less in the presence of men, and kept to herself when French was spoken. It became clear to me
that either girls were not going to school as often as boys, or they were not being treated the
same in school or while being raised by their parents. Boys spoke French with much greater ease
and confidence, and seemed more propelled to express their opinions to me.
I decided to create a girl’s group to address and increase awareness of the educational
gender disparities present in the village. The group met once a week and was open to girls who
were old enough to understand French, but who did not already have children. This ranged from
ages 12 to 22. My efforts to stimulate discussion were often met with resistance to and
embarrassment about engaging in a dialogue. Nevertheless, to the best of my ability I tried to get
them to discuss their problems in a male-free environment. The girls brought up topics such as
how domestic work interferes with schoolwork, how education coupled with their traditional
lifestyle burden them as they are expected to cook, take care of the children, and do chores
before they were allowed to study. We discussed the girls’ ambitions for the future, and their
academic and career goals. With these goals in mind, we talked about the disadvantages of early
pregnancy and marriage, the risks of HIV and STDs and discussed opinions on polygamy, which
defines much of the Togolese family structure. It was a struggle to get the girls to participate in
the discussion, 1. Because of the language barrier, and 2. I could tell they were not often asked to
express their opinions.
When the girl’s group was meeting weekly, I expressed interest to my supervisor that I
would like to interview some women in the village. It had become apparent to me that women
had so many challenges to overcome: trying to raise a family, often in the absence of their
husbands, cultivating their crops, transforming and selling agricultural products, going to the
market, and doing household chores all without the background of a formal education. Women
do not have the time to participate in the development of their community, yet they would be
most affected by the changes implemented. The survey I designed turned into a big research
project. My colleague, Kokou and I, interviewed 250 women in the entire township, which
includes 11 villages and farms. Our survey was comprised of four sections. The first section
related to their identity and family/marriage situation. The second section was about their
principal activities and sources of income. The third section was about family expenses,
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including rent, healthcare, food, education, transport, and whether they were able to save money.
In the last section, we asked the women to identify their family difficulties, and to propose
solutions, and then we asked about the needs of the community and what solutions they
proposed. Our method was to go into each village unannounced and asked women whether we
could talk with them. We interviewed only women who had children, anywhere from ages 18
until much older, we targeted the female heads of households.
A typical survey day included leaving the office no later than 6am to walk down the dirt
roads to neighboring villages, or up the mountain. To access villages not within walking
distance, we would take a taxi motorcycle. We spent the morning interviewing approximately
15-20 women, and then usually someone in the village would invite us to their house to eat
lunch—typically a plate of foufou. We would interview approximately 10-15 women in the
afternoon, then head back to the office before sunset to record our data on an excel spreadsheet,
using the remaining sunlight to power my computer with solar panels. We should not have saved
the most remote farms for the end of our survey. By late July it was the height of the rainy
season and all pathways had turned into swamps. We were forced to ride through the swamp to
reach some farms, which were located 3 to 4 kilometers off the main road. Most children in the
most remote farms cannot go to school until they are 10 years old because walking the long
distance under such severe conditions leaves them too tired to participate in their daily chores,
such as fetching water from a distant river and taking care of younger children.
Development Potentials and Constraints in the Agou Prefecture
Sustainable development is a large-scale issue that has concerned all governments, non-
governmental organizations (NGOs), and citizens around the world. To this end, governments
including that of Togo have formally committed themselves to helping implement sustainable
development through various activities aiming at reducing extreme poverty and other issues in
the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) or Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRS). Like other
NGOs, the Center for Assistance to the Deprived and Orphaned (CADO) continues to search for
approaches and solutions to the various problems affecting the communities living in
disadvantaged areas that can contribute to achieving the MDGs. Our study was conducted in the
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Township of Agou-Yiboé at the household level through women to identify problems and
approaches to solutions proposed by them for both the family and the community. The
participatory assessment is a precursor to the preparation of sustainable community development
projects through the strengthening of vulnerable families and the promotion of human rights. The
first section of this document, reports on the activities of our study supplemented with
background research from academic articles on development topics. It includes a background of
the geography of the region in which the study was conducted, a description of the objectives
and methodology of the study, and finally our results, analysis, and suggestions backed by
research.
The Agou prefecture is located in the west of Togo in the plateau region. It covers an area
of 1026km2. Its topography is characterized by a mountainous area, which features the highest
peak in Togo, Mount Agou (986 meters) in the northeast, where the vegetation is tropical with
damaged forests, and plains covered with grass savannas and forests in the south and northwest.
Several physical constraints linked to the environment are hindering development in the
prefecture, including: environmental degradation due to increased deforestation in recent years;
small farm sizes resulting in low incomes for farmers; reduced purchasing power of the farmer
due to poor yields, the fluctuation of food prices and the fall of world cash crop prices; and the
isolation of production areas. Despite these restraints, development is still possible due to various
suitable environmental conditions including: abundant rainfall for agricultural production
(average rainfall 1500mm/year); extensive pastureland good for farming of small and large
livestock and for the production of agricultural by-products special farming; soil which is both
fertile and adaptable to food crops and cash crops; availability of low-lying flood-prone crops
(e.g. rice, market gardening, etc); and significant scenic attractions for tourism development.
According to the Togolese National Statistics Office 2010 Census, the population of the
prefecture is estimated at 79,247 inhabitants, with 39,491 men and 39,756 women and an annual
growth rate of 2.33% (National Statistics Office, 2010 Census). Like the rest of Togo, the
population is young; its density is 77 inhabitants per square kilometer (77 inhabitants/km2). 90%
of the population lives in rural settlements, 114 of which have difficulty meeting their basic
social, health and sanitation needs. The average household size is between 5.5 and 12 people.
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Illiteracy rates are 50% for women and 20% for men. This factor hinders the ability of
beneficiaries to get involved in sustainable development projects. The ethnic majorities are Ewe,
Kabyé, Tem, Losso, Moba, and others. Administratively, the prefecture has 13 townships and an
autonomous village, where the Township of Agou-Yiboé has been the subject of our study. The
administrative center is Agou-Gadzépé. The Township of Agou-Yiboé has 10 villages and farms
and its administrative center is Fiagbomé. We can only estimate that the population of these 10
villages is anywhere between 4,000-6,000.
Several constraints hinder progressive development in the prefecture. These include:
inadequate health, school, telecommunications equipment and electricity facilities; vulnerability
to health conditions, and 78% of the population is affected by parasitic diseases, in particular
malaria; poor organization of local development structures including the Village Development
Committees (VDCs), District Development Committees (DDCs), and agricultural production
groups; absence of Village Action Plans (VAPs); persistence of child trafficking; lack of
logistical planning; and lack of legal framework for the operation of VDCs and DDCs. Despite
these constraints, the prefecture has vast potential for development given the following
conditions: abundant rainfall for agricultural production (average rainfall 1500mm/year);
significant scenic attractions; extensive pastureland good for farming of small and large livestock
and for the production of agricultural by-products special farming; soil which is both fertile and
adaptable to food crops and cash crops; availability of low-lying flood-prone crops (e.g. rice,
market gardening, etc); and most importantly the existence of local development structures, a
parliament, community development and leadership skills in the area.
Though the township possesses substantial infrastructure in comparison to similar rural
areas, it lacks upkeep and maintenance and requires significant investments to be further
improved and better serve the community’s needs. Most existing infrastructure is located in
Agou-Avedjé, which is, not coincidentally where the CADO headquarters lie. In the sector of
education, Agou-Yiboé has one middle school with four classrooms, six primary schools (four
public, one “school for local initiatives” and one evangelical), three nursery schools (two built by
CADO and Belgian partner organization Asbl BISZ). The middle school has six professors, three
are paid and three are volunteers supported logistically by CADO and financially by BISZ. Many
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of the remaining schools lack teachers and school buildings, and therefore classes are combined
and held under sheds, which do not adequately shelter the students from irregular weather
conditions. It is noteworthy, however, to mention that the public primary school of Avédjé has
installed a photovoltaic (solar panel) system in partnership with CADO BISZ-SSF (Solar
Without Borders) to provide light for the children to study at night. Health and hygiene structures
are largely inadequate, with the township possessing a single health clinic (in Avedjé) with an
average attendance of 80 people per month. Attendance rates do not reflect sickness rates, as
much of the population does not visit the clinic for various reasons including financial inability,
traditional medicine, ignorance, etc. The clinic has a lighting system and accessories
(refrigerator) powered by solar energy thanks to CADO and the support of Asbl BISZ. Hygienic
facilities in the township are virtually nonexistent, with only four schools possessing latrines.
The majority of villages use unprotected traditional latrines, which become particularly rough
and unpleasant during the rainy season. In the village of Avédjé, Engineers Without Borders in
collaboration with CADO built and financed 25 individual household ecological latrines, of
which 15 are under construction. The township does possess passable water and sanitation
infrastructure, yet access and degradation are two principal concerns. The township has a supply
of 24 wells of which only two are covered and benefit from a drainage system to prevent water
stagnation. There is a water pipeline system, which supplies drinking water to one mountain
village, Blakpa, and a mechanical pump in Fiagbomé. The Zio river and several smaller streams
run through the township; these serve as sources of water supply for the most remotely-located
local residents, and pose the most risk in terms of pollution, contamination and water-borne
illnesses. The township does not have electricity because it is not connected to Togo’s electric
power distribution grid. However, some wealthier households have solar panels for lighting and
recharging cell phones. Other families have generators. The most widely used communication
system is the global system for mobile communication (GSM). The township lacks transport
infrastructure; the roads are not paved and are in poor condition (full of potholes and bumps),
and during the rainy season many paths are impassable. Access to villages on the slopes of the
mountain is very difficult, and the lack of efficient mobility affects the socio-economic life of the
township’s inhabitants.
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CADO: A Togolese Development Agency
Created on December 10, 1998 in Agou-Avédjé, a village at the foot of Mount Agou
(Agou prefecture in Togo, West Africa), the Center for Assistance to the Deprived and Orphaned
(CADO) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) recognized by the Togolese authorities
through the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Privatization in the approval No.
300/MEFP/2004 dated January 27, 2004. It has been operating predominantly in the Agou
Prefecture since 1999.
CADO is a humanitarian organization whose mission is to contribute to the
empowerment of the rural population of the Agou prefecture by enhancing their income-
generating activities (AGR). It focuses on improving social welfare through various sustainable
development programs. To date, CADO has many achievements to its credit including the
construction of two nursery schools in Avédjé and Blakpa-Petsi, the establishment of birth
certificates to 200 children in the townships of Agou-Yiboé, Akplolo and Kébo, equipment for
two schools and two clinics with solar energy, support and assistance to hundreds of women
unified in Professional Agricultural Organizations (OPA), the creation of a regional unit for the
manufacturing and installation of solar panels, the rehabilitation of the Agou-Avédjé clinic, the
construction of ecological latrines in Agou-Avédjé, offering grants for the tuition fees of sixty
students at CEG-Avédjé, and the drilling of wells for inhabitants living on the outskirts of
Wessido. It is important to note that CADO, with support from the Government of Togo, has
close ties with organizations in both the Global North and South, such as BISZ-Solar Without
Borders Belgium, the United States Friends of Togo (FOT), Engineers Without Borders of the
United States (ISF/EWB-US) Initiative Togo-Germany, Farmers Without Borders (ESF) Togo,
France Volontaires, etc. It should also be noted that CADO is a member of several coalitions of
NGOs, including COADEP, PLaFOA, UONGTO, FIT-CADO-ARBES, etc.
For 12 years, the NGO Center for Assistance to the Deprived and Orphaned (CADO) has
been working toward the social well-being and empowerment of the region’s rural population
through development projects. However it is clear that many people in the intervention area of
CADO still live in poverty and in unfavorable (socio-economic) living conditions. Their lack of
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involvement in development projects is partly due to this, and partly due to their ignorance of the
situation in which they live, further expanding their vulnerability. Three contributing factors to
this vulnerability may include the marital status and family burden of these populations and the
related low family incomes. Given the potential that abounds the Agou prefecture and more
specifically the Township of Agou-Yiboé, it would prove beneficial to establish a sustainable
community development program that strengthens vulnerable families and supports the
construction of necessary basic infrastructures. The previous construction of such infrastructures
as schools and clinics indicates that the population benefits from these types of projects.
Fieldwork Overview
This overview highlights the purpose, concepts, and methodology of the fieldwork upon
which I will elaborate in Section II. The purpose of Section II is two-fold. First, it presents the
empirical results of a field study of household surveys administered in the township of Agou-
Yiboé in the Agou Prefecture of Togo during a two-month period between June and August of
2011. Second, it proposes a plan for the sustainable development of the township—focusing on
education.
Due to various constraints faced within the community and in their respective
households, rural families in poverty remain exceptionally vulnerable today. Several large-scale
projects that aim to reduce this vulnerability are underway, in line with the United Nation's
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This study conducted in six villages and five farms of
the township of Agou Yiboé, one of the townships where the Center for Assistance to the
Deprived and Orphaned (CADO) operates, aims to assess local conditions. It reveals the
difficulties the population faces, and recommends suitable projects to match the solutions
proposed by members of the community in order to strengthen the resources of vulnerable
families and establish a long-term sustainable community development. Women were the
subjects of the study because they are the primary caretakers of the family and household, and
thus are more prone to vulnerability.
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Our study aims to advocate for the establishment of a sustainable community
development by strengthening vulnerable families and their empowerment. In order to achieve
these objectives, we identified a sample size of 10-60 different households per village (respective
of each village’s size), familiarized ourselves with their socio-economic situations, learned their
family responsibilities, determined the causes for the difficulties the families and communities
are faced with, and asked for the subject’s opinions on the best approaches to development
solutions. Our diagnostic, carried out by way of social survey, was conducted in several phases.
Initially, it was necessary to consult the literature on past projects, the likely difficulties,
strengths and potential of the Prefecture, specifically the township of Agou-Yiboé. It was also
essential to become familiar with the demographic information on the various villages to
relativize how large our sample sizes should be per village. We developed a set of survey forms,
which aim to provide information on the family’s identity and status, their socio-economic
position, responsibilities, educational level, and their opinions on their difficulties as well as their
suggested solutions (see sample survey form in Annex). Women were the subjects of our study
because they are more exposed to vulnerabilities; most are heads of the household and
understand better the difficulties of the family, especially regarding children. The data collection
phase lasted two months, between June and August in 2011. During this time period, Degboe and
I interviewed 250 women from the 11 villages and farms of the township. A hardcopy of each
interview form remains in the CADO headquarters for reference. Next, we entered the data from
all 250 forms in Excel, allowing us to understand the difficulties on both the household and
community level by analyzing and tracking trends. Subsequently, we were able to transcribe
corresponding solutions in the form of sustainable development projects in the various
communities studied. Further analysis has been conducted between September 2011 and April
2012 in the United States with other software to gather statistics and define the correlations
between the parameters studied.
The study has allowed us to collect data on the difficulties of families from the township,
and analyze the options available for the community to overcome these difficulties. Analysis of
the results reveals that the problems are divided into the following four priority areas where
intervention remains critical, including: water and sanitation, health and hygiene; education; and
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socio-economics. For each of these areas, several sustainable development projects have been
identified, and serve as essential elements for the township’s development plan.
Context: History of Togo and Francophone West Africa
It must be noted that any generalization about a continent as large and diverse as Africa
poses a problem. However, I aim to place my study within the historical context of the region. In
two main sections I seek to address the common characteristics and challenges present in the
field of education in many West African countries, with a focused lens on Togo. The first section
provides a historical overview of official education systems in Togo and West Africa, identifying
the characteristics and challenges of education first in a pre-colonial, then in a post-colonial
context. The second section analyzes the characteristics of alternative education systems, and
highlights the complexities underlying the development of these new initiatives. Finally, I
propose that the movement towards transformative community schools is the most appealing
system for rural areas, but its widespread adoption in Togo is unlikely given five major
challenges it would face.
Togo and other West African nations saw a dramatic shift from pre-colonial to a post-
colonial education system; today, all levels of formal education in Togo face challenges such as
massification, unequal access, and poor quality of schooling—problems which are much
different than the problems of education in pre-colonial times. For the purpose of this paper, the
term “indigenous education” will be used to characterize pre-colonial Togo’s education system.
The Republic of Togo as a nation did not exist before colonization; instead, the region was split
into small pockets of ethnic groups each sharing a common language. Today, Togo is still host to
over 40 ethnic groups each with their own language (among the most notable groups are the Ewe
and Kabiye), but their institutions have been drastically transformed. These types of communities
in pre-Colonial West Africa were responsible for administering indigenous education to the next
generation at a local level. Indigenous education focused primarily on teaching individuals
economic skills for self-sustenance. Community members with special skills would pass on their
expertise to their children; this education was comprehensive and holistic in that it “provided
training in physical, character, intellectual, social, and vocational development” (Mkpa 2005).
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Colonialism in Africa destroyed the image of indigenous education as an accepted
standard system of education. Today, the European model governs academic institutions wrought
by colonialism. As is the case in the developing world, higher education in Africa is an artifact of
colonial policies (Lulat 2003). “The most important of the colonial powers in Africa, Britain and
France, have left by far the greatest lasting impact, not only in terms of the organization of
academe and the continuing links to the metropole but in the language of instruction and
communication” (Teferra and Altbach 2004, 23). International higher education specialists
Treferra and Altbach cite several common elements to colonial higher education policy, which
can be applied to colonial education policy in general; these include limited access (mostly to
elites), instruction in the language of the colonizer, limited academic freedom, and a limited
curriculum to benefit the colonial administration. These constraints still proposed major
challenges for West African nations around the time of independence in the 1960s. These
challenges are still present today, and were exacerbated in some cases by the foreign debt crisis
of the 1970s, and structural adjustment programs of the 1980s, in which many African countries
had to privatize institutions in order to limit government spending. “The overall reality of
inadequate financial resources combined with unprecedented demand for access, the legacy of
colonialism, longstanding economic and social crises in many countries, the challenges of
HIV/AIDS in parts of the continent, and other significant issues present a particular difficult
reality” for West African governments to take full responsibility for the education of their
citizens (Teferra and Altbach 2004, 23). The system’s financial problems can be attributed to the
expansion and massification of education, the misallocation and poor prioritization of financial
resources, and the aforementioned fiscal policies imposed by the World Bank and International
Monetary Fund. Despite recent efforts to integrate girls into the education system, substantial
gender disparities persist, with extensive gaps at the secondary and postsecondary levels
(Treferra and Altbach 2004). A disproportionate number of non-academic staff as well as
undertrained teachers and professors propose a huge problem. This is largely due to bureaucratic
governance issues as well as lack of funding for school materials and teacher salaries, and lack of
investment in teacher training. Because of financial issues and structural adjustment, Togo has
aimed to privatize its higher education in order reduce spending and boost income by, for
example, creating eighteen additional postsecondary institutions in the span of three years,
between 1998 and 2000, evoking all sorts of controversy (Edee 2003). Academic freedom is a
18
constant struggle among university students, with tight government crackdowns and temporary
university shutdowns, like those experienced in reaction to student body protests at University of
Lomé in the summer of 2011 (Degboe and Khalfa 2011). Aman Attieh notes the detrimental
effects of repressive governments on civil society in respect to tolerance and freedom of
expression, citing that these are all factors, which not only erode the quality of academic
institutions, but can also spur violence (Aman Attieh 2003). Lack of access to simple and/or
advanced technology and proper infrastructure radically slows down the efficiency of learning
compared to that of industrialized institutions. The “brain drain” (movement of highly educated
citizens to industrialized countries) remains a constant challenge for governments in terms of
keeping valuable faculty and students in the country to contribute to building state capacity
(Teferra and Altbach 2004). The culture of the brain drain also raises the issues of students’
goals and visions for success, which is more often to leave the country in search of better
economic prospects, and less to improve things at home. Recently, the Togolese government,
like others in West Africa has created policies to standardize apprenticeships through
certification programs (Velenchik 1995). What may be good intentions has led to larger financial
and logistical obstacles for students to climb in order to be deemed official graduates of
apprenticeships, which in Togo are almost exclusively informal arrangements, thus reinforcing
the dichotomy between formal and informal (Lave 1977; Kail 2003; Degboe and Khalfa 2011).
These are just several of the many challenges that Togo and other West African countries face in
their formal education system. As cited in previous examples, many of these issues are
exacerbated by the Togolese government’s choice of policies and actions. It comes as no surprise
that alternative education systems have been developing at a rapid pace.
19
SECTION II – EMPIRICAL RESULTS FROM FIELDWORK
Water Supply and Sanitation
The results in Table (1) show that the availability and quality of water in Agou-Yiboé is
unreliable. The existing sources of water are wells with water levels that drop to levels less than
15cm in the middle of the day during the dry season (November to March). Sometimes in the
afternoon, the wells are completely empty. It must also be mentioned that most wells remain
uncovered and do not have any drainage system, which can produce stagnation, increasing the
spread of waterborne diseases, and providing breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Rivers are
constantly being polluted by garbage, both animal and human waste, and pesticides used in
farming.
Table (1): Need for drinking water
Village No. people who expressed need
No. people surveyed
% of those who expressed need
Fiagbomé 5 20 25% Wessido 16 32 50% Petsi 15 43 35% Makavo 16 16 100% Ananivikondji 9 12 75% Zionou 14 16 88% Makoumavo 12 13 92% Total 87 152 66%
These water sources available are far from the populations and some villagers must travel
3km to reach them. This causes a delay in their daily work and especially prevents middle school
students, who must help their parents, from being on time and paying attention in school. These
sources of water affect people's health as they are full of parasites and microbes. Some of the
diseases encountered are schistosomiasis and onchocerciasis.
Recommendations: There are several possible solutions to this problem. The first is to renovate
the existing wells by increasing their depth thus increasing the quantity of water available,
especially in the dry season, as evidenced by the increase in specific productivity of a well that
20
has been deepened in Agou-Avédjé (Engineers without Borders, 2007). These wells will also be
equipped with lids and a drainage system.
For those whose source of water is a river, a ceramic water filter system initiated by Brett
Daily, a former Peace Corps volunteer in the area, would be a good approach to improve the
quality of water in the short term. This system would also work well in the villages where people
use uncovered wells, as even the transportation of water can be a source of contamination. Figure
(4) shows the filtering system. People were made aware of this system during the study, and an
overwhelming majority of the population interviewed views this option as viable. To maintain
sustainability, a system of communicating pipelines or drilling with a mechanical pumping
system could help solve the problems of distance.
Health and Hygiene
Table (2) summarizes the needs expressed for health facilities and Table (3) the need for
latrines. From these results, we can determine that the majority of the population has poor access
to the only existing health clinic in the township. Apart from reasons of financial difficulties, low
attendance at the clinic is due to its far location from some of the villages. Some patients, even
pregnant women or those in labor must travel up to 6km on foot to the clinic. In our study, 60%
of women complained of this distance, which when sick or pregnant can often causes
complications and sometimes lead to loss of lives. Occasionally some women give birth along
the way, endangering their own lives and those of the newborns. The terrain is also a problematic
factor in terms of access to health clinics, especially for many people living on Mount Agou,
who must descend the mountain despite the lack of roads or appropriate paths.
As an alternative, it would be useful to build a community health center in the mountainous
and/or remote areas, as well as an ambulance to transport sick and pregnant women.
Table (2): Need for a health center
Village No. people who expressed need No. people surveyed
% of those who expressed need
Agohoé 3 17 18% Fiagbomé 5 20 25%
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Wessido 16 32 50% Petsi 15 43 35% Makavo 16 16 100% Ananivikondji 9 12 75% Zionou 14 16 88% Makoumavo 12 13 92% Total 90 169 60%
Table (3): Need for latrines
Village No. people who expressed need No. people surveyed
% of those who expressed need
Agohoé 8 17 47% Fiagbomé 12 20 60% Wessido 17 32 53% Petsi 20 43 47% Blakpa 13 35 37% Ananivikondji 4 12 33% Zionou 14 16 88% Makoumavo 7 13 54% Donomadé 4 9 44% Total 99 197 51%
Apart from Avédjé where Engineers Without Borders has begun the construction of 110
ecological latrines, the other villages in the township expressed the need for latrines. These
people continue to defecate in hidden areas around the village, and as a result their water sources
are becoming increasingly polluted. This creates an unbearable environment, especially during
the rainy season as there are feces dotting every corner and a nauseating smell of sewage
particularly along the roads and tracks. In some villages, there are traditional latrines; these are
unsustainable and either collapse during the rainy season or become very unpleasant. They are
neither protected nor well-kept, allowing for the proliferation of flies and beetles, which cause of
several types of diseases. Recently, nearly 45% of the population suffered from diarrhea caused
by a type of cholera vibrio (DPS-Agou, 2011).
Recommendations: There are several alternative approaches to improve current conditions.
Among the options, the women surveyed were most focused on public latrines and ecological
sanitation systems (Ecosan).
22
Public latrines have already been tested in various areas of Togo and are successful if the
beneficiaries involved in the decision-making ultimately guarantee their quality and durability.
These are platforms that have a sanitary septic system with a smooth, solid and slightly sloped
slab for easy maintenance. The pit is shaped like a keyhole and is large enough to be used by
adults, but too small for children to risk falling. Sometimes it is possible to put a pot fitted with a
lid on the slab to make it more comfortable. The lid prevents flies from entering the pit. The
cover also reduces the smell inside the latrine. The WC is another good approach for villages
who desire public latrines. This is a system of connected containers, such as the one in use in
Blakpa. Note that these are sustainable infrastructures that can serve several people at once,
however they require a much larger investment, and utilize more water, which is a scarce
resource in this region, especially during the dry season.
The ecological latrine (EcoSan sanding for “Ecological Sanitation”) reuses feces and
urine to increase agricultural productivity by improving the structure and holding capacity of
soil. It provides a hygienic solution that successfully aids in the prevention of disease and helps
rid the surrounding environment of fecal microbes. It is environmentally sound because it does
not dirty the groundwater and does not utilize scarce water sources. It also creates a valuable
source of fertilizer, which can be productively reused in the environment through agricultural
production (EWB-US, 2007). In 2003, this option was implemented in Vogan and Boko-
Totsoanyi in Togo by the Regional Center for Drinking Water (CREPA), with support from the
Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). In 2010, this option became
available in Avédjé (Agou Prefecture) thanks to EWB-US through the NGO CADO. In Avédjé,
there are currently ten families using ten ecological latrines, and 15 more are under construction.
As Agou-Yiboé is a farming community, people are more interested in having a family latrine
for reasons of maintenance and sustainability. This would be the best alternative to hygienic
problems, and would simultaneously contribute to solving problems of soil fertility degradation
as well as to the community’s health and hygiene at a reasonable cost.
Education
As it is stated in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), by 2015 all children of age
must have completed a full course of primary school; because of this, the Togolese government
23
has made primary education free. As aforementioned, in the township there are primary and
secondary schools, yet these schools do not have sufficient materials or staff, no library and no
electricity. In addition, there are continued cases of children who should be in school, but are
instead at home for one of two reasons: they would have to travel more than 5km to school,
which would be too much for them; there are no pre-schools nearby to keep the smaller children,
and mothers as a result would have to keep their children with them while they work. To relieve
mothers of this task, older children must sometimes stay home and look after the younger ones.
Recommendations: The likely projects to improve education will be new pre-schools, renovation
of existing school buildings, construction of libraries, recruitment teachers and staff and
provision of educational materials. The installation of photovoltaic systems for lighting in
schools will offer students improved learning conditions, and will be particularly positive as
many parents cannot afford to provide lighting in their homes and most children in the township
go to bed without being able to revise or go over their class material. In fact, the lack of lighting
systems is a significant variable causing the high rate of failure in primary and secondary
schools.
For schools employing volunteer teachers, it is suggested that income-generating
activities (IGAs) be created to provide income for teachers but without exploiting student labor.
For financing, these schools can build connections with schools located in the Global North.
Section III of this document will elaborate on other possibilities for education solutions.
Socio-economics
Table (5) presents the IGAs practiced by the female population of Agou-Yiboé. An
analysis of the results shows that the majority of the population works in agriculture. The main
crops produced are maize, cassava, and yams. There are some smaller plots of vegetables and
fruits. Cash crops such as avocadoes, coffee and cacao are mostly found on Mount Agou.
24
Table (5): Income generating activities (IGA)
Village Agriculture Business Handicraft No. people surveyed % Agriculture
Avédjé 25 8 4 37 68% Agohoé 17 0 0 17 100% Fiagbomé 17 3 0 20 85% Wessido 30 2 0 32 94% Petsi 25 8 10 43 58% Blakpa 31 3 1 35 89% Makavo 14 1 1 16 88% Ananivikondji 11 1 0 12 92% Zionou 11 4 1 16 69% Makoumavo 9 4 0 13 69% Donomadé 9 0 0 9 100% Total 199 34 17 250 83%
In the township there are animal breeding groups including of goats, sheep, poultry, bush
rats (a wild rodent), pigs, and ducks. This animal breeding is supported financially in four
villages by CADO and ESF-Togo, an organization which builds pens and loans animals to be
passed on after breeding. However, these products fail to meet the needs of a constantly growing
population, and as a result the population remains undernourished and has little food security, as
seen during the dry season. Agriculture is the sole source of income for many people, yet the
farm plot sizes are very small, with an average of 250m2 per person, therefore income remains
low, leading to financial difficulties. 100% of women surveyed said they had financial
difficulties.
These low-income families are generally large, creating a heavy financial burden, and
this as a result prevents them from leading healthy lives with a varied and balanced diet. The
children lack appropriate clothing, education, and youth training. The result is a large number of
half-educated youth who do not attend school, who are unemployed and have no basic training
that could enable them to earn a living. Crime rates and urban migration are on the rise. Others
engage in sexual practices, exposing themselves to STIs/STDs, HIV/AIDS, and unwanted
pregnancies, which are precursors to an increase in family size and a source of impoverishment
of rural populations. Taken from the sample size, Table (6) shows the average number of
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children per family by village. Table (7) shows the number of women who stopped their studies
due to an unwanted pregnancy.
Table (6): Average number of children per family
Village No. children Avédjé 3.59 Agohoé 3.84 Fiagbomé 3.65 Wessido 3.41 Petsi 4.09 Blakpa 4.26 Makavo 4.38 Ananivikondji 5.17 Zionou 4.63 Makoumavo 4 Donomadé 5.44 Total Average 4.22
Table (7): Number of women who stopped their studies due to an unwanted pregnancy
Village Unwanted pregnancy No. people surveyed % women Avédjé 6 37 16% Agohoé 3 17 18% Fiagbomé 1 20 5% Wessido 4 32 13% Petsi 14 43 33% Blakpa 5 35 14% Makavo 2 16 13% Ananivikondji 1 12 8% Zionou 1 16 6% Makoumavo 4 13 31% Donomadé 2 9 22% Total 43 250 17%
As shown in Table (8), nearly half of the households surveyed are supported partially or
entirely by one woman. It is important to note also that these families are for the most part
supported by women without substantial resources, because they cannot regain their IGAs for
several reasons. Table (9) shows that 76 out of 250 women surveyed, or 30%, are illiterate
meaning they have had no access to a formal education. Not only does the lack of formal
education result in less ability to speak the language of commerce (French), but also often
26
reduces a woman’s credibility to be given responsibility beyond that of the family. This can in
turn cause women to have less confidence and be less open to taking initiative. These women
cannot save money (190 out of 250 women, or 76%) primarily because their income does not
surpass their expenses. Furthermore, even when there is the possibility to save, the lack of
awareness of or confidence in microfinance institutions to secure their savings, is a major
constraint. Table (10) shows the number and percentage of women in the township who are
currently saving. The women have no birth certificate (in our sample, 11 women did not have
birth certificates), and no collateral to obtain loans in the conventional banks to strengthen their
IGAs.
Table (8): Amount of female heads of household who live alone or without their husbands for
reasons of polygamy
Village Divorced/ Single
Married (alone) Polygamous Widowed
Total heads of household
No. people surveyed
% Heads of household
Avédjé 7 3 1 10 21 37 57% Agohoé 0 2 6 2 10 17 59% Fiagbomé 2 1 1 1 5 20 25% Wessido 9 2 1 1 13 32 41% Petsi 6 4 7 4 21 43 49% Blakpa 5 2 4 3 14 35 40% Makavo 0 0 10 0 10 16 63% Ananivikondji 0 0 2 1 3 12 25% Zionou 0 0 3 0 3 16 19% Makoumavo 2 1 3 2 8 13 62% Donomadé 0 0 1 0 1 9 11% Total 31 15 39 24 109 250 41%
Table (9): Number of illiterate women
Village Illiterate People surveyed % Illiterates Avédjé 9 37 24% Agohoé 3 17 18% Fiagbomé 9 20 45% Wessido 9 32 28% Petsi 6 43 14% Blakpa 6 35 17% Makavo 7 16 44% Ananivikondji 6 12 50% Zionou 11 16 69%
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Makoumavo 5 13 38% Donomadé 5 9 56% Total/Average 76 250 30%
Table (10): Number of women who save money
Village Women who save money People surveyed
% of women who save money
Avédjé 12 37 32% Agohoé 2 17 12% Fiagbomé 3 20 15% Wessido 10 32 31% Petsi 14 43 33% Blakpa 6 35 17% Makavo 4 16 25% Ananivikondji 2 12 17% Zionou 4 16 25% Makoumavo 1 13 8% Donomadé 2 9 22% Total 60 250 22%
Recommendations: To enable the population of Agou-Yiboé meet basic social needs and to
ensure the positive upbringing of their offspring, several options are available. I will elaborate on
two possibilities, including adult empowerment and finance projects, and youth employment and
empowerment.
When discussing their needs, the women spoke out most about the lack of credible
microfinance institutions which would help them to save money or obtain loans to strengthen
their IGAs. We observed that some of these women were saving, but mostly informally, and not
in a reliable or viable way. For this, CADO already has a mutual agricultural fund which into
which additional resources should be placed to meet growing demand. CADO is currently
seeking funding through this project to increase mutual funds for women.
Other types of projects are also worth looking into. One would be to create a Village
Savings and Loan Association (VSLA). These projects complement the microfinance
institutions, and are already in place in some areas of Togo, such as Sokode, as well in as other
African countries, e.g. Mozambique. THE VSLA works with 25 members per village, and it is
28
based on a self-management system containing a bookkeeper, self-selected members and features
a kit consisting of a box with three padlocks and keys held by three different members, plus other
items (books, card, stamp, ink, ruler, pens, calculators, 30 cm x 15 cm plastic bowls, three fabric
drawstring bags for money, and some painted metal washers).
One solution to the problems of unemployment and lack of jobs among the youth would
be to create a farming business featuring irrigation farming or a unit for the preservation and
processing of agricultural products. A business like this would employ the more active
population and bring in more income. This farming project is being tested by the independent
organization Coeur Monde at the National Institution of Agricultural Training (INFA) in Tové,
Togo, which employs 6 permanent, and around 20 temporary staff. A similar project would
allow the township to meet its need for vegetables and consequently reduce malnutrition rates,
especially during the dry season. Another option is to have a production unit with sewing
machines and equipment for hairdressing, carpentry, and masonry, where those who reach the
end of their training and do not have the means to open their own workshop, can practice their
profession and at the same time train others who need to learn a trade. This project was
introduced by the Germany-Togo Association (AGERTO) in Kpalimé and has proven to be very
successful.
Conclusion
The study conducted in 11 villages and farms in the township of Agou-Yiboé to establish
a sustainable community development has allowed us to understand the difficulties the families
and the community face, and possible solutions. The outlined development projects fall into four
priority areas for population monitoring: water supply and sanitation, health and hygiene,
education, and socio-economics. All these projects are part of the axes of the MDGs and, when
they are funded, will improve the living conditions of the population of Agou-Yiboé. The
projects include water filters, wells, latrines, health centers, schools and accessories,
microfinance institutions or Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLA), and agriculture or
trade businesses employing youth and adults. Given the potential of the township and the
existence of the Centre for Assistance to the Deprived and Orphaned (CADO) with its dynamic
29
team, these projects will undoubtedly prove to be a success. The study was designed to provide
context for any person interested in assisting in the development of this area.
It appears that nearly all families in the township have financial difficulties in terms of
meeting their basic social needs. Considerable financial difficulties remain at the community
level due to a lack of adequate income-generating activities (IGA), exacerbating vulnerability.
The need for education, health, hygiene, communication, water and sanitation infrastructures
differs from one village to another. To improve the situation, depending on the needs, it is
important to develop a strategic plan to build key infrastructure such as schools, recreation
centers, health centers, wells, latrines, systems of communication. It is equally important to build
capacity institutionally through empowerment initiatives. Particularly in education, a
restructuring of institutions to make them more relevant to village life can have long-lasting
effects on the community. Associations and groups of people should be strengthened to increase
peer-to-peer learning and the spread of beneficial ideas.
30
SECTION III – EDUCATION & POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
Policy Recommendations Addressing the “Triple Crisis”
The three problems of the “triple crisis” facing global development today can be defined
as 1) inequality and poverty, 2) lack of environmental sustainability, and 3) lack of structural
transformation. Because these complications are so vast and interwoven, a purely economic
solution will not address all aspects and will not lead to long-term progress. The global
development crisis runs so deep, that an all-inclusive analysis of its complexities must be
performed. This includes studying historical, cultural, geographical, political, and economic
factors that may be contributing to the cycle of underdevelopment. These considerations must be
examined through both time and space. The general pattern is more interaction with the outside
world.
Throwing money at a problem will not solve it. Instead, we need a holistic transformation
of the global world order. In the following paragraphs, I recommend three top-down policy
changes that can help improve the global crisis; however, these policies must be coupled with
support for grassroots movements and micro-solutions. Unleashing human creativity instead of
inhibiting it is the key to producing innovative ideas on how to tackle humanity’s most persistent
difficulties. While holistic change is needed, education is perhaps the most promising long-term
solution, in that it not only fuels transformation in all other areas of development, but it produces
new knowledge and provides people with the key to their own freedom. It will have ripple
effects. As William Allin put it, "education is not the answer to the question. Education is the
means to the answer to all questions."
World Bank economist Francisco Ferreira highlights the challenge of inequality of
opportunity around the world, and how this inequality is negatively associated with economic
growth. Much in-tune with Amartya Sen’s vision of real “development,” I agree that it is only
through equality and human values that we can achieve true development and egalitarian justice.
So how do we create equal opportunity for every individual on this planet?
31
In order to promote global equality and create jobs while supporting the environment and
changing social perspectives, we must level the international playing field. This three-pronged
process includes: 1) loosening restrictions on lower-income countries, 2) tightening regulations
on damaging, capitalist monopolies, and 3) investing in human capital to promote well-being.
The first part involves policy changes that would loosen restrictions imposed by Western
agencies like the IMF, World Bank, and the WTO on low-income, developing countries. As
Harvard economist Dani Rodrick points out, these Western institutions still tend to promote
orthodox policies in line with the Washington Consensus such as deregulation, privatization,
property rights, and budget deficits. Time and time again we have seen with the failure of
structural adjustment and conditional aid, which goes to show that these policies are simply not
universally applicable. Ferreira argues that the economy has become so globalized that Western
countries are now hostile to the very policies that benefitted them historically. By undermining
lower-income countries’ sovereignty, multilateral Western agencies are not allowing them
allowing the independence necessary to make economic decisions benefiting their own countries.
Just as markets are not inherently development-friendly when left to operate unregulated,
developed countries must ensure that international economic rules do not inhibit the development
of low-income countries.
The second policy change would tighten regulations on multinational corporations as
well as hypocritical practices that exacerbate inequality. Several examples of such policies would
include removing United States agricultural subsidies to large corporations practicing
monoculture and genetic modification, and re-allocating the money to benefit small, bio-diverse,
organic farms and to fund the development of additional community and urban garden initiatives.
Not only would this level the international playing field by allowing small farmers from other
countries to compete with US farmers, but it would promote the health of disadvantaged
communities which do not have adequate access to nutritious, fresh food. Food insecurity is on
the rise in the US, and the majority of current health crises like obesity, cancer, and diabetes are
linked to our investment in highly processed, inorganic food subsidized by the government.
Another necessary policy measure would be to integrate the true cost to the environment into all
products we consume. Though the green movement has really taken off in the past 10 years,
Western society’s consumption habits in terms of quantity have not changed. Going “green” is
32
often abused as a marketing strategy for companies to make profits, and for consumers to feel
less guilt about products that are not actually helping the environment. As Ed Barbier suggested,
we should institute an international tax on financial transactions in order to fund environmental
research, advocacy, and rehabilitation. But we should not stop there. We should use Barbier’s
philosophy that policies can be used to transform the consumption habits of the rich. Global
environmental leaders should create an organization similar to the UN that calculates the true
cost of consumable products. This international organization will then dictate the true prices of
oil and regulate them on a global level. Large corporations that have lobbied for political support
for years (despite damage done to human and environmental health) will be stripped of their
subsidies and policies in their favor, and replaced by environmentally friendly, organic, fair trade
companies which value social well-being before profit. The international organization, financed
by heavy taxes on damaging products will in-turn reward these new, human- and Earth-friendly
companies with subsidies. With their new subsidies, equitable companies will be able to hire
more employees, and prices of their friendlier products will be more affordable than the prices of
goods that negatively affect human and environmental health. By making policies like these
international, not only are we helping human and environmental health, we are allowing the poor
to choose between healthy and non-healthy options. We are no longer forcing people to choose
between paying less or helping promote longer equality, health, and happiness for the planet.
Therefore, these policies help level the global playing field by giving the people fair choices—
equal opportunities. In this way, our environmental initiatives are enhancing human well-being
without shortchanging development for the poor or limiting productivity.
The final policy change would urge international investment in human capital and social
well-being. When we get tied up in the economics of our global crisis, we tend to forget that the
goal of development is to enhance human well-being. If it is not doing this (like in the example
of jobless growth), society is actually hurting rather than healing. As Banjerjee and Duflo
indicated in their article “More than 1 Billion People Are Hungry in the World: But what if the
experts are wrong?” poor people often do not believe that their meager situation can change in a
respectable amount of time, so they make short-term decisions. But education allows people to
think about the future and to think about the long-term impacts of decisions. Once the two
aforementioned policy changes are in place, the international community should invest in
33
universal education to supplement the new, more equitable global structure. Because education is
the key to equality of opportunity, this is the last step needed to make sure all individuals can
take advantage of the new international policies. A well-educated population is wiser, more
tolerant, and more creative than an ignorant one—meaning that communities will lead in
grassroots advocacy for better policies and micro-solutions that enhance human well-being and
development. In this way, equality of opportunity can lead to true global equality, development,
health, and happiness.
“A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions.” This is the
natural process of the mind as we learn through life. However, the formal education system,
rooted in a post-colonial French system, does not do much to help stimulate positive learning
among Togolese student. It in facts hinders their ability to learn because of the system’s direct
contradiction with most aspects of Togolese society and culture.
Investing in human capital to promote well being, and unleashing human creativity
instead of inhibiting it is the key to producing innovative ideas on how to tackle humanity’s most
persistent difficulties. Because education is fundamental in ensuring equality of opportunity, this
is both the first and last step a society must take to ensure that all individuals can take advantage
of the global system. A well-educated population is wiser, more tolerant, and more creative than
an ignorant one—meaning that communities will lead in grassroots advocacy for better policies
and micro-solutions that will in-turn enhance human well being and development. In this way,
equality of opportunity can lead to many more community-led initiatives to improve ones own
development, health, and happiness.
Despite steady progress towards achieving some EFA goals, 77 million school-age
children in developing countries do not have the opportunity to attend school because of
financial, social, or physical challenges. A disproportionate number of these children reside in
sub-Saharan Africa. Field research in Togo will help me gain insight into how other forms of
education can reduce high costs and increase effectiveness to better suit the needs of the
Togolese population, and contribute more positively to the country’s development.
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But right now, international domination and cultural hegemony by Western governments
and their support for large, multinational corporations are preventing social entrepreneurship and
low-income countries to come up with their own solutions to the crisis, which happens to affect
them more. As long as the rules are dictated by a wealthier elite who controls access to
resources, developing countries will be at a disadvantage.
Theories of Development in Literature
The Agou prefecture is mostly rural and most people live below the poverty line. When
we question which development solutions would best bring them out of the situation of poverty,
we must first assess the region’s potentials, and likelihood that a development solution will be
efficiently endorsed and will provide sufficient returns for the investment to have been
worthwhile. When inquiring about whether a certain population is likely to adopt a certain
solution, it is important to differentiate between cultural motivations, and situational motivations.
Duflo, a development economics theorist, explains that the poor are just as rational as the rich.
However, when a market does not produce an efficient outcome, this situation may change the
way the poor rationalize. Duflo (2006) uses the example of insurance and risk to highlight the
way in which poor people think when they are faced with precarious, risky situations. Poverty
does influence decision-making by providing constraints on the opportunities and possibilities of
actions to ensure a less precarious livelihood. Trade-offs are distorted, and much of the decision-
making is influenced by stress—worst, stress from the threat of starvation
The traditional economic measurement of development has been quantified as a sustained
annual increase in gross national income (GNI) at rates of 5-7%. A rise in income per capita
demonstrates that output is expanding faster than population growth; theoretically speaking, a
rise in output implies a rise in development (p. 14).i My analysis has brought me to share the
views of those who have developed alternative indices, such as the Human Development Index
by Amartya Sen, now adopted by the UN. The obsession with economic growth as a
measurement of development, or even as playing a critical role in the development debate is
outdated and inappropriate. Nevertheless, despite a more complex understanding of the causes,
interpretations, and objectives of development, many intellectuals and academics routinely
35
tumble into redundant dialogues and measurements of GDP, economic growth, capital,
productivity, efficiency, privatization, and technology—leaving the true human objectives of
development all but forgotten. Those who claim that a globalized world will allow for the trickle-
down of wealth from rich nations to the poor in developing countries are not painting an accurate
picture. Many sub-Saharan African countries now have high GDP growth rates, and some
African academics believe this is the force lifting people out of poverty. But that is only one side
of the equation. Foreign policies such as privatization, cuts for social programs, and structural
adjustment imposed by developed nations to alleviate foreign-debt problems have worsened
conditions for many developing countries. In the 1990s, high-income countries experienced a
surge of economic growth while incomes in sub-Saharan Africa declined as the number of
people on the continent living in extreme poverty rose by 50 million. This epidemic of
underdevelopment affects over 3 billion people in the world (Todaro & Smith 2009, 15). The
extent of its severity can neither be measured quantitatively nor ignored. Therefore, we must ask
ourselves what the true concerns are in our discussion of development. Dudley Seers points out:
“The questions to ask about a country’s development are… What has been
happening to poverty? What has been happening to unemployment? What has
been happening to inequality? If all three of these have declined from high levels,
then beyond doubt this has been a period of development for the country
concerned. If one or two of these central problems have been growing worse,
especially if all three have, it would be strange to call the result “development”
even if per capita income doubled” (Seers 1969).
Amartya Sen, Nobel laureate in economics and perhaps the world’s leading development
thinker rationalizes the importance of human goals, which are often forgotten, as both the ends
and means of economic development. He reminds us “economic growth cannot be sensibly
treated as an end in itself. Development has to be more concerned with enhancing the lives we
lead and the freedoms we enjoy” (Sen 1999,14). Development is a multidimensional process,
which involves abstract transformations in social and institutions, attitudes, political perceptions,
as well as the concrete acceleration of economic growth while simultaneously reducing
inequality and poverty (Todaro & Smith 2009, 16).
36
Complementary Education Models
In response to the shortcomings of Togo’s education system, the late 1990s saw
remarkable growth of alternative education initiatives in response to various shortcomings, many
of them community-led and funded by international development organizations (Kpeglo and
Gbogbotchi 1999; Hoppers 2005). Togo’s low school enrollment rates indicate that these
initiatives may have been fueled by attempts to meet demand for better access and/or quality at
the primary and secondary school levels. In 2005, 9% of all students in Togo were educated
through a system other than formal, public schooling; the percentage since then has most likely
increased. This paper utilizes Wim Hoppers’ term “community schools” to refer to the majority
of alternative education initiatives (Hoppers 2005). Research shows that community schools are
most often established to provide services to groups with insufficient access to formal or public
education. As a result, community schools have increasingly become associated with the
“periphery,” or poorer communities in rural or peri-urban areas (Cummings 1997). Though lack
of access is the primary reason for alternative initiatives, we must also consider factors including
“insufficient household resources and high opportunity costs for conventional education” as well
as the consequences of many of these children—extreme poverty, domestic responsibilities, and
rampant illnesses—which make attending formal school impossible for some and difficult for
many (Hoppers 2005, 120). In a statement addressing the drastic drop in gender equality of
enrollment in Senegal by the time students reach the secondary school level, despite 10 years of
initiatives to improve girls’ access to education in Senegal, Pape Sow, former director of
Planning and Reform in the Senegalese Ministry of Education argued, “Girls leave schools to
work as domestic workers, for example. We cannot control demand for education” (IRIN 2008).
Advocates of alternative systems of education might argue with Sow that the type or quality of
formal education is one possible reason for low demand; it may also be feeding into the dilemma
of post-graduation unemployment. Furthermore, Bennell cites that parental decisions to send
their children to school are linked to their perception of diminishing household and individual
returns to schooling (Bennell 1999). Bergmann’s research takes this a step further and indicates
that not only are the perceptions of education influencing demand, but actual poor quality is
(Bergmann 1996). If type or quality is the issue, this will inevitably lead to different educational
initiatives depending on perceptions of which methodology is best.
37
Hoppers simplifies the diversities among alternative education systems in Sub-Saharan
Africa by dividing them into four categories: (1) alternative schools which use different modes of
delivery to achieve the same goals in learning outcomes as public schools; (2) alternatives which
provide an adaptation, not just in delivery, but also in “curriculum and pedagogical practices, and
thus of anticipated learning outcomes”; (3) alternatives focusing on transformation—targeting
personal and community empowerment as goals, with much more contrast to the public school
system; and (4) alternative forms of “enculturation” or systems—such as religious or indigenous
education and Islamic schools (Hoppers 2005, 118-119; Daun 1992). Later on, I will highlight
aspects of the two most common community schools in Togo (categories 2 and 3). Research
indicates that retention, completion, and success in learning achievement in are linked more
strongly to a positive learning environment (ie. teacher support for pupils, community
supervision, instruction and communication in national languages) than to quantity of resources
(Hyde et al. 1996). Compared to its neighbors, Togo has high repetition rates and low retention
rates, suggesting’s educational environment is quite poor (Kpeglo and Gbogbotchi 1999).
Results from empirical studies done on community schools in several West African countries,
including Togo, indicate: (1) community schools retain higher percentages of students than
public schools, especially among girls; (2) community school pupils perform the same or better
in the same tests for mathematics, reading, and writing; and (3) community schools tend to do
better than public schools in reading and comprehension in both national and foreign languages;
and (4) community school girls score better than public school girls, but lower than boys from
both types (Muskin 1996; Hoppers 2005).
These results from a sample of sub-Saharan African countries must now be applied to
Togo’s particular conditions in order to properly assess the characteristics of Togo’s alternative
education systems. The most common forms of alternative education in Togo are similar to the
general categories 2 and 3. Community schools from the second category are the most common
in Togo, and have diverse degrees to which public school curriculum is adapted. Research
illustrates that this alternative education is most likely to differ from public school pedagogy
when external actors are involved in shaping the decisions, but hold the similar pedagogy in
community-initiated situations. Most initiatives in Togo are community-based, and alternative
38
schools follow essentially the same curriculum as public schools. However, because the
Togolese government only exceptionally recognizes community-initiated schools, management
is left to rural authority figures, local associations, and international NGOs. Quality of the
schools varies depending on the type of management and resources. Remote communities have
the least organizational capacity and lowest levels of resources; therefore, they are usually
supported, or intend to be supported, by local NGOs in partnership with international donors.
Establishing a community school means determining its rules and policies, and instituting a local
management committee to enforce adequate supervision and give special attention to children in
need (ie. girls, orphans, and those with illnesses). Community schools that use the local language
in early grades enhanced comprehension and active communication in class, producing a more
congenial learning environment. Limited teaching of life skills may be incorporated into the
curriculum (Hoppers 2005).
The third category of alternative education focuses on transforming the educational
process, usually in the name of “empowerment” by directly addressing issues of poverty and
marginality. It aims to use education as a mechanism for social change, where the learners can
actively empower themselves through economic and/or political initiatives to improve their
livelihood (Moulton 1997). To different degrees, there is an effort to localize education by
incorporating life skills learning, most notably through the development of critical thinking skills
like decision-making, problem-solving, and coping skills. The other aspect incorporates practical
economic initiatives, some of which include micro-finance, health, agriculture, and craft
development (Fall and Mara 1999). These initiatives usually focus on youth (girls in particular),
due to such a large percentage of the population (over 50%) below adult age, the shortcomings of
the current public education system, and the increasing social implications for the future if the
next generation is unable to gain the expertise to tackle the issues they face. In Togo, these types
of community schools survive only by strong external support, most often from international
NGOs. Nevertheless, large social movements in more radical transformative education are
sweeping through other parts of West Africa and are bound to reach Togo thanks to the success
of new community-led development initiatives, one in particular started by the organization
Tostan in Senegal. Most of these developments are heavily funded by international NGOs
(Khalfa et al. 2011). They have spread so successfully that the governments of these countries
39
are slowly becoming involved in promoting new curriculums in both the formal and non-formal
types of education. These new community schools seek to provide a form of rudimentary
education that is much more localized and relevant to rural life (often exclusively taught in local
languages) and can address issues of poverty by promoting self-sufficiency, empowerment, often
times focusing on how improving women’s status can improve the development of an entire
community. Many aspects of this new approach echo the system of pre-colonial indigenous
education, but with modern elements added.
Based on evidence of the colossal constraints that the post-colonial Togolese education
system has on social well-being and development—including its inability to include the rural
sector in a positive way—radically transformative community schools seem to be the best form
of education for rural communities because of their localized strategies and impacts. However,
there are five main obstacles holding back this type of alternative education from proliferating in
Togo: (1) transformative community schools possess a perception of education dramatically
different from that of current post-colonial education system in terms of curriculum, approaches
to pedagogy, and goals; (2) as the media diffuses Western culture more rapidly to villages via
technology, rural exodus among the Togolese youth is prospering because of the “appeal” of
city-life; (3) the likelihood of strong receptiveness by the Togolese government to welcome these
new initiatives is bleak at best—mostly because of foreign economic interests and the adoption
of the neo-liberal economic framework; (4) a rapidly globalizing world might mean the eventual
integration of the most remote areas into the global economy—meaning that Togolese educated
under this system may not be able to compete economically with global individuals, and if they
do not speak an international language, communication difficulties may inhibit their progress;
and (5) post-colonial Togolese culture, like in every post-colonial state, struggles with the duality
of modern vs. traditional that may never disappear, making the dichotomy between formal and
alternative forms education an inevitable reality, and the shift towards modern still has an
incredible force that defeats many community-led development efforts. However, I believe that
we will see at least some expansion of alternative approaches to education in rural areas (due to
sheer corruption and mismanagement within the Togolese public education system) and that
these new educational developments will improve rural well-being.
40
Conclusion
Film director George Lucas once proclaimed, “traditional education can be extremely
isolating - the curriculum is often abstract and not relevant to real life, teachers and students don't
connect with resources and experts outside of the classroom, and schools operate as if they were
separate from their communities… Students connecting with passionate experts, and broader
forms of assessment can dramatically improve student learning.”
With his words in mind, I have developed a simple breakdown of the transformations
within the education system that would be necessary to generate an egalitarian, long-lasting,
cost-effective, and more engaging learning environment for Togolese citizens. Because of the
country’s youth buldge, education is the most pressing current issue because it will be affecting
Togo’s future for generations to come. Over 50% of the population is under the age of 18.
Presently, unemployment is so high that sunny economic prospects for the Togolese youth
simply do not exist. A sweeping educational reform is needed. I divide it into three sections:
purpose, structure, and methods.
Purpose:
First, we must define Togo’s purpose for educating its citizens. Government officials,
NGOs, and donors must ask themselves why they think education is a beneficial investment.
Most countries invest in education because it provides long-term returns and important spillover
benefits. “An educated person provides benefits to people around him or her, such as reading for
them or coming up with innovations that benefit the community… in many ways that a sick
person cannot” (Todaro & Smith 2009, 375). Studies show that substantial investments in
education and health can provide much larger returns to economic development than investing in
just one or the other. They fuel a cycle, which becomes more and more efficient with time.
Greater health means a longer life, thus improving the return to investments on education. Health
is important for school attendance and the formal learning process of a child. Better health
lowers the rate of depreciation of education capital. Greater education capital improves returns to
investments in health because health programs rely on basic skills learned in school, such as
41
personal hygiene and sanitation, basic literacy and numeracy, which are in-turn used to make
better informed decisions regarding health. What we observe in present-day Togo is that the
country is stuck in a vicious, negative cycle of poor education and health. In attempts to reverse
the cycle, significant financial and structural investments in education should be made. (Todaro
& Smith 2009, 369-430).
The perception of “universal education” needs to be transformed from a chore for the
government to a necessary part of Togolese culture. Education must be rooted in practicality and
real-life applications. To do this, we must assess the local needs of each community by asking
questions. What is the purpose of educating a child living in a rural area? What will this child
contribute to the community? What resources do we have to guarantee this child a long and
successful life growing up in his or her place of birth? How do we limit rural exodus? What type
of jobs do we want to see 30 years from now? We must also assess the predicted global
transformations and outside factors that may present themselves as educative challenges. There
is no escape from an increasingly globalized world. We must make sure that our educational
institutions are sufficient to absorb modern technology and develop capacity for efficiency.
Structure:
Universal primary education connotes that all regions must conform to one system.
However, in order for schooling to be effective, it must be properly adapted to the region where
it is administered. Therefore, the education sector in Togo should be localized and decentralized
just as much as it should be universal. It should provide universal, quality education to all areas
of Togo. However, because the lives of populations living in urban areas are so different from
those living in rural areas, education should be adapted to better suit the population’s needs.
We must address the financial flow of money to invest in education with utmost equality.
Local authorities should judge whether distribution methods are fair and effective. By holding
multiple actors accountable at different levels of administration, local leaders can have more
control over which resources are allocated to their district, and whether resources are fairly
distributed.
42
Methods:
What methods will teachers use to educate their students? First we must determine which
models of education are most beneficial to the area’s conditions and circumstances. Not only will
the area have to adapt to global changes, it will have to adapt to a growing population of youth
and limited resources. I suggest several themes for education that may make learning more
effective for students living in remote areas. Education should be interactive—using forms of
media and social media to connect students to a global world and broaden the scope of their
education; activities should be recreational—students learn just as much outside the classroom
than inside. Variety and fun makes students more open and willing to learn; students should be
challenged, pushed beyond their comfort zones and motivated to pursue their dreams; it is crucial
that students develop leadership capacity—each student should be required to lead a project and
mentor younger students. This will give them a sense of responsibility for something they are
passionate for, and provide them with the confidence to become an early professional. As they
run into roadblocks, they will develop critical thinking skills for real-world problems. Similarly,
education should involve community engagement at every level and should be relatable to the
students’ lives.
If these themes are treated during the educational process, students should develop many
theoretical skills such as critical thinking and questioning, leadership, innovative ideas, and a
guided, rational thinking process allowing them to turn ideas into final products. The curriculum
should include basic vocational training of the practical skills that will be needed in life, such as
agriculture, nutrition, basic health care, and other professions and skills needed to live in a rural
area. Educators will foster a better relationship with their students if they demonstrate mutual
respect. Studies show that learning is more effective when conducted in the student’s local
language rather than a foreign language they do not understand.
Educators should be creative with their methods of teaching. The bottom line is that
teaching should include variety to stimulate student engagement. Film screenings, plays,
projects, and the use of social media and other beneficial technologies will help localize
education and bring the learning back to Africa. The postcolonial French education system can
43
be detrimental to a Togolese student’s education because it has no direct applications to everyday
Togolese life. Education is soon seem as separate from anything a Togolese student might go on
to do, therefore leaving the student with little incentive to continue studying, and the parent with
little incentive to continue paying fees. By localizing and contextualizing education through
African film, students will learn how to think critically about the situation of their communities
and become open to the possibilities of innovating and developing their own projects rather than
feeling as though they must escape.
It is within this framework that a transformation of Togo’s education sector could prove
beneficial for the majority of its citizens. With a more effective education, they will have much
more incentive to stay in their regions and contribute positively to the development and well-
being of their communities.
44
Annex The following two pages contains the sample form which was used during the study to conduct 250 interviews. Fiche d’enquête des familles villageoises Objectif: Etablir un développement communautaire durable par le renforcement des familles vulnérables et leur autopromotion. I. Identité et situation familiale de l’interviewé Question Réponse Village Nom et prénoms Sexe F ⃝ M ⃝ Age Niveau d'étude Niveau: _______ Age d'arrêt: ____ Raison: _________________ Situation matrimoniale Célibataire ⃝ Marié(e) ⃝ Divorcé(e) ⃝ Veuf(ve) ⃝ Situation de vie conjugale Seul(e) ⃝ Avec époux(se) ⃝ | Monogamie ⃝ Polygamie ⃝ Personnes prises en charge Enfants propres: ____ Autres personnes: ____ Nombre total: ____ Situation de logement Propriétaire ⃝ Locataire ⃝ Hébergé(e) ⃝ II. Situation socio-économique Question Réponse Activités principales
____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ *Agriculture: superficie et rendement *Commerce: chiffres d'affaires
Activités secondaires
____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ *Agriculture: superficie et rendement *Commerce: chiffres d'affaires
Autres sources de revenue
Profession d'époux(se)
45
III. Charges familiales Question Réponse Loyer ________ F/mois Payé par: _______________ Santé Oui ⃝ Non ⃝ Payé par: _______________ Alimentation 1 ⃝ 2 ⃝ 3 ⃝ fois/jour, __________ F/semaine Scolarité Nombre d'enfants: ______, __________ F/an Payé par: _______________ Electricité Oui ⃝ Non ⃝ Transport ________ F/mois Commentaires: ___________________________________ Epargne ________ F/mois Institution: _______________ Raison: ______________ IV. Opinions Question Réponse
Difficultés de la famille (problèmes familiaux)
Causes
Effets
Approches de solutions
Besoins de la communauté (problèmes communautaires)
Causes
Effets
Approches de solutions V. Autres commentaires ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
46
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