15
children, the populations of the outlying regions of the East and the North, the physically
handicapped and senior citizens. In this category also figure public servants whose
cumulative salary arrears have now amounted to forty (40) months.
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Bad Governance
All these factors combined are the root cause of the serious crises experienced
by the country and which brought about political instability followed by insecurity. The
humanitarian consequences of these factors gave rise to the Emergency Appeal
launched by the United Nations for the CAR in April 2003.
And so it is important to emphasise that one of the consequences of the poverty
which results from bad governance is the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS.
i
Education
In the area of Education, the years following independence were marked by a
spectacular increase in primary school enrollment, and the same was true for secondary
schools.
This increase was undoubtedly linked both to the uncontrolled population
explosion and the education democratisation policy. Thus, the Table below provides
some data relating to the primary education situation.
Years
1960
1970
1980
1988
2002
2004
Pupils
61,428
170,000
243,419
286,422
368,027
361,261
Schools
340
778
812
1,014
1,493
1,217
Classrooms
840
1,164
3,117
3,665
5,421
4,719
Teachers
1,040
2,169
4,010
4,563
4,824
5,021
It must however be underlined that the above important quantitative results are
unfortunately accompanied by a decline in teaching standards, the main causes of
which are the paucity of material and financial resources, the absence of a good,
rigorously planned policy for the management of human resources and the perennial
non-payment of salaries, which results in failed years, countless strikes and the growing
apathy of the teaching cadre.
The growing awareness by the State of this degradation led it to organize, with
UNESCO’s support, a National Seminar on Education and Training and on the Estates
General of Education in 1982, at the end of which major changes in the Central African
education reform system were called for.
In spite of the major changes and the efforts which were accomplished, the
Education system in the Central African Republic remains a cause for concern. The
country has only one University and a single technial school. Furthermore, certain areas
of the country severely lack schools and/or the schools exist but there are no teachers.
The consequence of this situation is characterized by: