Ethnicity, Exclusion, and Exams: Education Policy and Politics in Burundi from the Independent Republics to the Civil War (1966–1993)

Emily Dunlop

doi:10.1177/00020397211023513

Abstract

Education policy can embed ethnic inequalities in a country. Education in Burundi, with its historically exclusive political institutions and education, represents an important case for understanding these interactions. In this article, I interview twelve Burundians about how they experienced and perceived ethnicity and politics in their schooling from 1966 to 1993. I argue that education contributed to tangible and perceived social hierarchies based on ethnic inequalities. I show that this exclusion reflected both overt and covert policy goals, through proxies used to identify ethnicity in schools and through the exclusive nature of national exams at the time, which promoted members of the Tutsi minority at the expense of the majority Hutus. This study has implications for understanding how perceptions of inequality in education manifest as grievances against the state. It sheds light on the importance of understanding covert education policy as a potential mechanism for generating exclusion and contributing to conflict.

Highlights

After all, our schooling has not been so much the great redeemer of prejudices as the tireless chronicler of what divides us. (Willinsky, 1998: 1)When Cadeau finished primary school in 1978, his step was the concours national, a notoriously difficult exam required for secondary school entry in Burundi
He passed on his fourth attempt and eventually studied law at the University of Burundi in the late 1980s and early 1990s
Given the political conditions at the time of these interviews, before the 2015 election, I was unable to go to Burundi to conduct these interviews; ten of twelve participants were based in Canada, with two remote interviews with Burundians in Burundi

Summary

Introduction

When Cadeau finished primary school in 1978, his step was the concours national, a notoriously difficult exam required for secondary school entry in Burundi. He passed on his fourth attempt and eventually studied law at the University of Burundi in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Almost forty years after he first took the exam, he described his experience:. I didn’t realise what was going on, why they were so hard, until I was in the University [of Burundi], and there were no Hutus in my class.

Methods

Results

Conclusion