Student riots crystalise frustration with education cutbacks

Four days of rioting by secondary school students in Libreville last week highlighted a growing frustration with education cutbacks in Gabon, a country that grew rich on oil, but which is now struggling to cope with a steady decline in production. The country's main technical school remains closed after four days of rioting over cutbacks to a free student bus service in which one student was killed. A shortage of seats on a free school bus sparked a clash between students from the Omar Bongo Ondimba Technical School and pupils from a rival college. Only 65 of the 100 school buses in Libreville are operating because the government says it does not have the money to carry out repairs. If there is no school bus, students have to walk miles to class, or pay for a bus or taxi, like most of their counterparts in Sub-Saharan Africa. But in oil-rich Gabon per capita income is 10 times higher than the average for the continent and people have got used to a more cosseted lifestyle. The cutbacks in the free bus service therefore caused an outrage. Angry students destroyed three of the school buses that were still working and wrecked classrooms and college equipment. Some, brandishing machetes, set up roadblocks on the streets of the capital. Education experts said this violent outburst of anger was a sympton of deep-seated malaise in the education sector. “Over the last five years there has been a problem of falling quality in Gabon’s schools,” explained Michelle Elvis Kenmoe, the field manager of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). Kenmoe said the private sector had been invited in to bridge the gap as the government found itself unable to meet the demands of Gabon's 1.2 million population. “But many private schools are just in it to make money - this is a big concern for the government,” he told IRIN. UNESCO recently conducted a joint survey on the education system in Gabon with the government, but its report has yet to be approved by the Ministry of Education and Kenmoe was reluctant to comment on its findings in detail. However UNESCO officials expect the report to paint a sorry picture of declining educational standards and deteriorating infrastructure. “Last year," Kenmoe said, "there was only a 35% pass rate for the baccalaureat” - the main high school leaving exam. “As a result”, he added, “there is a high drop out rate at secondary level.” The results were particularly bad last year because teachers brought in from other West African countries went on strike for four months after the government threatened to take away special benefits for staff recruited overseas. The baccalaureat pass rate used to average around 60 percent. Primary education is free in Gabon, but secondary education is not and fees, as well as standards, vary widely. Fees at private schools vary from 20,000 to 70,000 CFA (US$40 to $140) a month and if the costs of buying uniforms and books are included, that bill is more than doubled, Michel Moussavou the head of one private secondary school told IRIN. While many students are dropping out of secondary school, the government is cutting back on the number of students being sponsored to go to university. For example, the state used to send doctors for overseas post-graduate training, often in France. However, the government agency that awards bursaries to students wanting to study overseas says it can no longer afford to fund such luxuries. Windfall earnings from oil exports have helped to give Gabon a higher standard of living than its neighbours and have helped to keep President Omar Bongo in power for 37 years - longer than any other head of state in Africa. But according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), falling production from the country's mature offshore fields has reduced government revenue in recent years and forced it to make heavy cutbacks in spending. Oil accounted for 60 percent of Gabon's government revenues during the 1990s, However, after peaking at 370,000 barrels per day in 1997, production has declined by a third to around 250,000 at present, according to US government statistics. The IMF predicted in mid 2003 that oil output would plunge by half again over the next five years as existing reserves were depleted. High world oil prices have so far helped Gabon to absorb some but not all of the pain. The IMF has forecast a gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of US$4,276 for Gabon this year. That is 18 percent down from the peak of $5,214 touched in 1996 at the height of the oil boom, but still generous when compared with the average of $475 for Sub-Saharan African as a whole. Corruption and the mismanagement of Gabon's existing resources have contributed to declining standards in public services. In its 2002 report Escaping the Curse of Oil? The Case of Gabon, the IMF said: “Although spending on public health and education has tended to be rather high in Gabon, results have been disappointing.” It cited examples of contracts being awarded to the cronies of senior government officials and the appearance of totally ficticious contracts in government accounts. The European Union and the Islamic Development Bank had allocated funds for the upkeep of the free school bus service, the spark for last week’s riots. However, Gabon's main daily newspaper, L’Union, accused the government of reallocating this cash to other areas such as election campaigning. It also accused the government of buying second hand buses from Morocco rather than new ones. The financial constraints on the government are not just visible to Gabon’s schoolchildren and students. Even new school buses would not survive long bumping through the Libreville’s increasingly potholed streets, which the government no longer repairs regularly. Outside the capital the roads are even worse. There is no main road linking Libreville with the oil city of Port-Gentil, which lies 100 km to the south as the crow flies. To travel overland between the two, drivers have to negotiate over 600km of bumpy rural roads. According to airport officials, 80 percent of people who make the journey choose to fly instead. The flight takes just 15 minutes and costs about US $ 120 return. But the Gabonese are lucky that they are still rich enough to afford that.