| Resume |
The education systems of francophone Sub-Saharan Africa basically represents a transfer of the french metropolitan model of education to an environment in which the realities do not always resemble that of the Western culture. In this context, a tension between pedagogical ideal and contextual realities is evident. In order to succeed, an education system should integrate all dimensions of human development and such a vision of schools should necessarily include attention to the education of teachers (Benavente, 2007). Education is looked onto as agent to solve all problems of economic growth and also to provide a solution to all problems of human (BAH, 2015). During the course of the past three decades, successive governments in Benin have, with the support of Western powers, invested heavily in the education of teachers, and it is within this context that public Colleges of Teacher Education, Ecoles Normales d’Instituteurs (E.N.I.), were established with the brief to ensure the proper education of primary school teachers (Décret N° 2010-298, 2010). What then is the current state of teacher education? Also, what could be learned from the experience with teacher education for the medium and the long term? What were the professional and socio-economic returns to teacher education in Benin, measured against the original objectives? Do the contents of teacher education programmes respond to the exigencies of the context of Benin? These questions are urgent and they force us to re-look at teacher education in Benin, and to interrogate the curricula of teacher education programmes. |