Charles-de-Gaulle High School in Saint-Louis: Overcoming Challenges to Achieve Excellence

Saint-Louis, Jul 19 (APS) – Charles-de-Gaulle high school in Saint-Louis, in addition to the challenge of providing a good education to its students, must also deal with the social situation of some of them and its geographical position which places it in the middle of three populous districts, says its headmaster, Baba Noho, indicating that despite these factors, the school has managed to stay on course for excellence.

Charles-de-Gaulle is one of the country’s historic high schools whose rehabilitation the President of the Republic, Macky Sall, announced during his speech to the nation on December 31. He is housed between the densely populated neighborhoods of Pikine, Diamaguene and HLM, a geographical location that confronts him with security challenges.

It is the only public secondary general education establishment of this scale located outside the island of Saint-Louis. Due to the fact that it is surrounded by densely populated neighborhoods, it accommodates a high number of students.

In total, they are 2865 to attend its 54 classes, specifies the principal. Some years, the school even hosts up to 3,000 students.

Among these students, many come from underprivileged social classes and are therefore exempt from registration fees, says Baba Noho. More than a hundred students are in this situation. Because of this condition, the school has set up an Observatory for Vulnerability and School Loss (OVDS). Its objective is to look into “serious social cases”, explains Baba Noho.

This structure brings together teachers responsible for monitoring the case of these disadvantaged children and supporting them thanks to a budget made available by the school.

Inclusive education is, so to speak, a trademark of Charles-de-Gaulle who, of course, welcomes students living with a disability.

“We have a blind pupil and we collaborate with the Boly Diaw school where Braille equipment exists to transcribe his homework”, points out Mr. Noho. He also gives the example of another physically handicapped pupil to whom the school had allocated a scholarship while those accompanying him were exempt from registration fees.

“We do it to keep them in the system and luckily the latter [l’élève vivant avec un handicap physique], who had received a wheelchair from high school, passed his baccalaureate and was directed to the Virtual University. He no longer needs to make the trip for his lessons, ”declares, relieved, the headmaster.

He confides that he managed to pay 350,000 CFA francs at the school to allow one of his boarders injured in physical education and sports classes to cope with his care. “We do it without waiting for the insurance, and afterwards, we regularize,” he explains.

For physical and sports activities, the students of the Lycée Charles-de-Gaulle must share their sports hall with almost all the students of public and private establishments who do not have one.

“The latter are arguing with us for our gym,” he says. In addition to students from other schools, many talibés (students from Koranic schools) squat the school grounds to play football or engage in other sporting activities in the middle of the afternoon.

A situation probably linked to the fact that the Lycée Charles-de-Gaulle does not impose the wearing of school uniforms on its students, due to the difficult social situation of certain parents. Also its managers are unable to control the identity of those who frequent the premises.

“We still have four guards who try somehow to control the entrances day and night,” he explains.

“Wearing the uniform could have helped us identify the students, but we cannot demand it from parents who refuse to pay,” he laments. He hopes for a change with the school uniform program announced by the government.

The former Charles de Gaulle to the rescue

The former Charles de Gaulle high school, organized into several associations, often come to the bedside of their former establishment, which they continue to support in various ways, said high school principal Baba Noho.

“In particular, they support the celebration of excellence by distributing numerous prizes and computers,” he says. This year, for example, one of the associations had planned to visit the school on February 25 to see what action to take in its favour.

The former Charles de Gaulle have set up various associations with the aim of helping him. One of them has set up a Whatshapp group of 293 members, says Mr. Noho.

They sometimes include among them intellectual luminaries who have become well-known personalities in their field of development. Among them, there is the professed Mary Teuw Niane (former rector and former minister), Ousmane Ngom (lawyer and former minister), Mahammad Boun Abdallah Dionne (former Prime Minister, Bassouaré Diaby (former trainer), Maham Diallo (judge), Abdoulaye Daouda Diallo (CESE president, former minister).

The high school, built in 1962, is in an advanced state of disrepair, according to Mr. Noho. According to him, the sanitation network is characterized by problems of water backflow, while the plumbing and electricity are faulty.

The walls have sealing problems and the metal grids of the windows are rusty and let air in, to the chagrin of the students and their teachers.

The Charles de Gaule high school must also deal with heavy flooding of its premises each start of the school year. “The entrance is transformed into a water retention basin and classes are always slow to start, thus influencing the hourly quantum,” he said.

Worship of Excellence

Despite this somewhat difficult situation, the school has managed to maintain excellence, according to its headmaster. Last year, it recorded a baccalaureate admission rate of 60 percent, well above the national average of 40 percent.

The school, according to its headmaster, has set up a committee of excellence to take care of the close supervision of its students. Its budget has been revised upwards, from 500,000 to 1,500,000 CFA francs, reports Mr. Noho, concerned about finding a university for his residents who have just won the baccalaureate.

In addition to the General Competition, students are encouraged to try their luck in other competitions, with a view to taking up a trade in order to integrate professionally. It is therefore not surprising to see many of them succeed in recent years in prestigious schools in the country.

Explanatory sessions are organized regularly with universities and training institutions to help students in their orientation, he says.

The Charles de Gaulle high school organizes an orientation fair where officials from training schools and other institutes meet students to inform them about what awaits them after high school, reports Mr. Noho. “Yes for a school of excellence and adequate training for the job market. Studying becomes a job project” was the theme of the last edition of this fair.

The purpose of the approach is to guide them by explaining the opportunities available to them, he recalls, believing that having skills should help some to be operational two years after the baccalaureate.

According to its headmaster, the Charles de Gaulle high school is developing a policy of orientation and maintenance in rare series. However, he regrets that “private establishments come to take our students from us in the final year”.

“They take finished products to go get all-around prizes with them. These students make use of our teachers and come to pay to be supervised”.

“You have to come here on Wednesdays and Saturdays, you will see all these students from private schools marching for reinforcement classes when they had them for free with us,” adds Mr. Noho, annoyed by this situation.

“We invest in our students by symbolically disinteresting the teachers for close supervision and they come and take them to have 100 percent pass rates,” he says.

Their students having an average level, they register them as free candidates to inflate their rate, explains the headmaster of De Gaulle.

AMD/ASG/SBS/OID