(ANSA) – ROME, JUL 31 – English will be taught in primary schools in Algeria by the end of the year. This was announced by the president of the former French colony, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who has succumbed to the growing demands of undergraduates and academics, writes the BBC online.
“French is a spoils of war, but English is an international language,” the president said during an interview on state television that will be broadcast in full this evening. At the moment, English is only learned in secondary schools.
Algeria gained independence from France in 1962 after a bloody eight-year war that continues to complicate relations between the two countries. The continued use of French in institutions and business administration has always been a sensitive subject. Arabic and Tamazight, spoken by the Amazigh or Berber minority, are the official languages of the country.
But academics and undergraduates have always argued that English should be the primary language as it is the university’s teaching language for those studying medicine and engineering. According to the current curriculum, English is offered to secondary school students from the age of 14, while French is taught to pupils at the age of nine.
In the early 1990s, a similar initiative was launched, which required parents to have the right to choose between French and English for their children in middle school. But the initiative sparked outrage in France and a pro-French lobby within the Algerian government asked to abandon the program. Eventually the Minister of Education was removed. (HANDLE).
Source: Ansa
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