Returning to Dakar is always a wonderful experience, and this time was no exception. It gave me the opportunity to reconnect with colleagues who have dedicated decades of their careers to advancing bilingual education as a means of improving access to—and the quality of—education for learners across the African continent.
This summer, I had the privilege of attending the Sixième Réunion du Comité de Coordination International (CCI) of the ELAN (École et langues nationales) initiative, organized by the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie’s Institut de la Francophonie pour l’éducation et la formation (IFEF) from June 30 to July 3. The CCI serves as ELAN’s principal governance and coordination body, bringing together representatives from participating countries, technical experts, and institutional partners to review progress, identify priorities, and shape the initiative’s future direction. This sixth meeting marked the conclusion of ELAN’s third phase and brought together representatives from Madagascar, Togo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Senegal, Mauritania, Cameroon, and Gabon to reflect on achievements and discuss the future of multilingual education across the region. A comprehensive report documenting the accomplishments of ELAN’s third phase was also shared with the participants.
© Photo : OIF-IFEF/N Fort Production
For readers unfamiliar with ELAN, the initiative was launched in 2012 by IFEF with the support of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) and the Agence française de développement (AFD). What began as a pilot initiative has since grown into one of the most significant efforts supporting L1-based multilingual education in Francophone Africa. Over the past decade, ELAN has brought together linguists, educators, researchers, and policymakers from across the continent and beyond to support ministries of education in developing curricula, producing teaching and learning materials, strengthening teacher education, improving classroom practices, and, more recently, advancing assessment systems and pedagogical approaches that build on learners’ full linguistic repertoires.
© Photo : OIF-IFEF/N Fort Production
What became even clearer to me during the conference is that ELAN is, above all, a community of people. Behind the initiative are educators, linguists, community leaders, and advocates who have spent years—often decades, even before ELAN—working to establish African languages as legitimate languages of instruction. Sitting in the same room with many of these individuals was a powerful reminder that educational reforms are rarely the work of a single project or organization. Rather, they emerge through sustained relationships, coalition-building, and the shared conviction that meaningful change is possible.
© Photo : OIF-IFEF/N Fort Production
One of the highlights for me was participating in the Senegalese and Mauritanian working groups as they developed the next phase of implementation for multilingual education within their respective national contexts. I really enjoyed these technical sessions because they focused on very concrete questions: What should happen next? What challenges remain? How can implementation continue to move forward in ways that are both meaningful and realistic? These conversations illustrated the challenges in moving from policy aspirations to sustainable classroom realities while remaining attentive to each country’s unique context.
© Photo : OIF-IFEF/N Fort Production
Another aspect of the technical discussions that I particularly appreciated was the growing attention given to how languages interact in the classroom. Rather than treating languages as isolated systems, many conversations centered on helping children draw strategically on all the linguistic resources they bring to school, an approach often described as promoting interlinguistic transfer or pedagogical translanguaging. There was also increasing work and interest in developing assessments in first languages and bilingual contexts, an essential step if multilingual education is to be recognized not only as a pedagogical approach but as a system-wide educational practice capable of capturing what learners know and can do in the languages they speak.
As I left the conference, I found myself feeling both hopeful and energized. Hopeful because of the remarkable expertise, the growing body of evidence, and the lessons emerging from more than a decade of multilingual education initiatives across Francophone Africa. Energized by the opportunity and responsibility to help make this work more visible to researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and partners beyond the region.
With Mbacké Diagne, Inspecteur général de l’éducation et de la formation des langues nationales of the Ministry of Education in Senegal
© Photo : OIF-IFEF/N Fort Production