French curriculum banned from private schools in Algeria

In Algeria, the 3rd largest French-speaking country in the world, private Algerian schools are no longer allowed to teach the French curriculum.

On September 19, Algerian private schools received a sharp reminder from the Ministry of Education: “only the Algerian national curriculum is authorized”.

Failure to comply could result in the closure of the school.

A few days ago, the Algerian government accused these schools of “taking advantage of the State’s weakness to fool it into teaching foreign curricula”.

It’s worth noting that this linguistic crackdown by Algiers comes in the midst of a diplomatic chill with Paris, and at a time when a new, less pro-French generation is taking over at the head of the administration.

It should be stressed, however, that neither the Lycée français d’Alger nor the Hydra elementary school are affected, as they have an agreement with France.

It should be noted that it was in the 1960s that the French language was adopted in the school system, and in 1978 that the gradual arabization of schools began.

And since the late 1980s, French has been taught as a foreign language, alongside English, Spanish and German, in the junior and secondary cycles.