Education et variabilité des environnements socioculturels : cas des enfants déplacés intenes de Zamai-Mokolo. région de l'extrême -nord, Cameroun

Abstract

This research work is titled “Education et variabilité des environnements socioculturels : cas des enfants déplacés internes de Zamai-Mokolo, Région de l’Extrême-NordCameroun”. It brings forth the problem of formal education of school age internally displaced children settled in diverse cultural universe especially in Zamai. Forced displacement are an additional constraint for communities that are less favourable to formal education. This led us to the main question: what logical cultural factor in the area of education one must prefer in favour of displaced school children in the Zamai locality, Mokolo, Far North Region of Cameroun? The first hypothesis is that according to which, the logic of cultural reliance must uphold the dynamics of school assistance in favour of displaced school age children in the Zamai locality, Mokolo, Far North Region. The main objective is to examine the cultural logic in the area of education uphold in favour of displaced children in this area. The study being qualitative and descriptive in nature, analytic and interpretative, the data collection technics are: Focus group discussion, semi-structured interviews, life stones, direct observations, observation questions, simultaneously with literature review. The life wire of this analysis made us use of three theories: diffusionism of Boas F., (1940), constructionism theories (socioconstructivism) of Etiennette Vellas that Vygotsky tells talks of (1997); the social representations of Jodelet (1993), Herzlich (1972) and Laplantine (1987). The results revealed that in pedagogy, a child benefiting from formal education normally evolves in a family environment where is developed a “sacred commitment” that enables he/she to obtain a better school performance in order to ensure his/her integration into the society. It is effective when the parents are committed with some means and mechanisms of their own to accompany their kids to success. Just that families becoming very vulnerable owing to poverty compounded by insecurity that forced them to migrate, do no longer have the capacity to effectively take care of the education of their kids. This often causes sociocultural change. The cultural logics that uphold the formal education of displaced children in their new environment brings out the level of knowledge that the population have of the integration of displaced school age children in the Zamai locality, the attitude of the people of the host community and implementing strategies for the adequate care of these group of vulnerable people. The improvement of means of subsistence and lodging facilities, water hygienic and sanitation, health services, of adequate education in the areas where internally displaced persons lived are most of the challenges to the development of Zamai. Economic handicap, destitution or the level of poverty of internally displaced persons, geographical accessibility, the blockage of school children at secondary level, socio-cultural factors relating to religion of the parents, the approximate appreciation of internally displaced persons of formal education constitutes factors that explain the high rate of school dropout amongst these vulnerable persons in Zamai. The emergence of a new paradigm, that of inseparable conceptual couple of deliance/reliance positions the research in the perspective of “cultural reliance” for quality education of vulnerable children owing to forced migration.