From September 8 to 15, the National Days of Action against Illiteracy are being held. On La Reunion Island, some 115,000 people are affected by this phenomenon, and one young person in five - that’s a huge number. Despite the official decolonization of La Réunion, illiteracy persists in our country. It’s one of the hallmarks of underdevelopment.
The struggles waged by communists and progressives led Paris to make a reality of the law on free, compulsory schooling. Free schooling has not yet been achieved. Every year, parents have to buy school supplies for their children. According to the principle of free schooling, books, notebooks, pens, sheets and other accessories must be provided by the state at least up to the age of compulsory schooling, i.e. 16.
Access to public schools is therefore compulsory. Today’s illiterate Réunionese have therefore spent at least 10 years in the French education system. Despite this, many of them are still unable to read and write at the end of this important period in their lives. How can we explain this phenomenon?

The system favors native French speakers

First of all, a pre-requisite: La Réunion is not France. French is not the mother tongue of the majority of Réunionese, Creole is. However, the education system in place in La Réunion functions in the same way as in France, where French is the mother tongue.
French is the language of instruction. This can only favor a minority of French speakers to the detriment of a majority of Creole speakers. Our island’s bilingualism is not taken into account by this education system. Yet logic would dictate that French should be learned as a foreign language before being used as the sole language of instruction. In this way, young Réunionese would be able to master two languages from the outset: Creole and French.
The mastery of Creole by all teachers is also an asset for the communication of knowledge. But academic success is not the main objective of this system, and questionable arguments are put forward to justify the facility offered to French speakers.

French as the sole language of instruction: no pedagogical argument

Around the world, English is spoken far more often than French. If the language of instruction in France were English from elementary school onwards, without any prior learning, it’s a safe bet that school failure would be higher in this country, as would illiteracy. However, such an eventuality goes in the direction of the defenders of French as the exclusive language of instruction in La Réunion: the mother tongue is less widely spoken in the world than the language of instruction. So this argument doesn’t hold water.
Another argument is more political. La Réunion is part of a state, the French Republic, where the official language is French. For opponents of Creole as a language of instruction, French is the language of integration into the State, and teaching in Creole could be likened to separatism.
Here again, this argument is highly debatable. A state as prosperous as Switzerland has three official languages - German, French and Italian - while German speakers far outnumber the other two language communities.

Creole-speaking mothers impose French as the sole language on their children

Maintaining French as the language of instruction therefore favors acquired situations. Is it in the interest of certain native French speakers living on La Réunion Island to see their children competing for management positions with the overwhelming majority of Creole speakers on Réunion?
The consequences of such a system can be very worrying. For example, some Creole-speaking mothers speak only French to their children, imposing French as the language of communication at home. They believe that their children will have a better chance of becoming managers later on, thanks to their success at school. But in the long term, this threatens the existence of the Creole language, which is as much a part of humanity’s heritage as the other languages still spoken around the world.

Recognition of bilingualism and inspiration from Cuba’s success story

To fight illiteracy, we need to take into account the reality of bilingualism on La Réunion. Creole must be taught in the same way as French. This can only encourage the greatest possible number of young Réunionese to succeed at school.
In addition, for people suffering from illiteracy after at least 10 years in the French school system, it is important to draw inspiration from methods that enable this problem to be resolved rapidly.
When the Communists took over in Cuba, the vast majority of the population was illiterate. The fight against this phenomenon was a Communist priority. Today, Cuba has one of the lowest illiteracy rates in the world, lower than the United States or countries like France.
So why not cooperate on a large scale with Cuba to solve the problem of illiteracy on La Reunion Island in just a few years?

M.M.