The multi-skilled facilitators working in the early childhood centers of the Bignona department are denouncing the inaction and silence of the early childhood authorities regarding their situation. These workers (multi-skilled facilitators), supported by the general secretariat of SELS (Syndicat des Enseignants Libres du Sénégal – Union of Free Teachers of Senegal) during an extraordinary assembly held at the Bignona Center for Education, Documentation and Cultural Action (CEDAC), demanded the immediate commencement of training and publication of the list of facilitators, in addition to their formal recruitment.

 

According to Yancouba Badji, Secretary General of SELS Bignona, these multi-skilled early childhood educators are still suffering and have received no updates on their career plans. He bluntly states that the Senegalese government has abandoned these educators.

"The Senegalese state has abandoned the early childhood centers. Imagine that the last training organized for the multi-skilled facilitators of the early childhood centers dates back to 2002. Today, we denounce this attitude and we demand that the government publish as soon as possible the list of facilitators who must be trained in the CRFPEs. Otherwise, we say we will take things to the next level," declared the Secretary General of SELS Bignona.

Hunger strikes, marches, sit-ins, all these forms of protest are not excluded from the planning of these versatile facilitators under the direction of SELS to make themselves heard and win their case.

"The problem is that these multi-skilled facilitators, for the most part, have spent more than five years in early childhood centers. And the rule is to spend two years there, then go to the CRFPE (Regional Centers for Early Childhood Training) and be trained. What we are seeing today is an oversight, an abandonment, a disregard for the state of Senegal and the early childhood center agency. Therefore, we demand the publication of the list and the summoning of these multi-skilled facilitators from the early childhood centers so that they can be trained and recruited to change the face of schools, but also so that they can have better working conditions," the Secretary General of SELS Bignona strongly denounced.

 

Yancouba Badji mentions a proposed age criterion for selecting these early childhood workers for training. This is an idea or reform that the members of the SELS union in Bignona don't even want to hear about and cannot understand.

"Multipurpose facilitators have always been trained without regard to age. Today, some have been working with toddlers for over five years. If the State were to impose an age requirement, it would only exclude those who have been in schools for more than five years. And we will not accept that. We will not accept an age requirement, nor will we accept a diploma requirement. That has never been the rule in the toddler programs; it has always been community-based management. And it is the communities that have chosen their own volunteers, and these volunteers are in the schools. So, during the training, let no one talk to us about age, let no one talk to us about diplomas," Yancoba Badji, Secretary General of SELS Bignona, emphasized.