For a few years now, a group of optimistic and resilient Algerian students have worked against all odds to introduce the concept of social entrepreneurship in Algeria. They’re sure that entrepreneurship can change Algeria; they believe it can be economically sustainable, a creator of job and wealth, and attentive to social and environmental considerations. All Algerians need is more faith in themselves.
We met with Yanis Bouda, the computer science student who created the Algerian Center for Social Entrepreneurship, and asked him how Algerians can take control of their country’s future.
A contagious passion
As often happens with ideas in Algeria, the social entrepreneurship concept first gained traction in a university. In 2011, Ismail Chaib, an Algerian graduate who’s now working from Berlin for MakeSense, an international platform connecting social entrepreneurs, travelled back to his hometown to introduce the concept of social entrepreneurship.
Some students who participated in the talk, including Bouda, decided to organize some MakeSense workshops and events in Algeria to help social entrepreneurs grow.
Their action didn’t go unnoticed. In 2014, Bouda was invited to a university exchange program on social entrepreneurship at Connecticut University, an experience he remembers as very enriching.
To share all that he had learn with all the social entrepreneurship players in Algeria in one central location, he decided to create the Algerian Center for Social Entrepreneurship, strongly influenced by what Tunisians did with the Tunisian Center for Social Entrepreneurship, and what Moroccans did with the Moroccan Center for Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship. The young men convinced two other students who’ve also taken part in the exchange program to join him, and asked Tarik Ghezali, cofounder of French organization Social Entrepreneurship Movement (Mouves), and Ismail Chaib to join them as advisors.
The Center, launched in December 2013, has as its missions the following: to raise Algerian youth’s awareness, to prove that social entrepreneurship is possible in Algeria, to work for the creation of a social entrepreneurship status, and to train social entrepreneurs based on the knowledge that the team has garnered on the ground and during their residence at Connecticut University.
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Education in Algeria is free and compulsory for Algerians from the ages of 6 to 15.However, only half of Algerian students are enrolled in secondary schools.As of 2015, Algeria has 92 post-secondary institutions, which includes 48 universities.
Before the conquest of Algiers by France in 1830, religious lands called hubus paid for Muslim teachers.When the French conquered Algeria, they seized the hubus, which ended traditional education funding.During the colonization of Algeria, Napoleon III reestablished the usage of madrasa schools and created primary schools that were both Arabic and French.However, during the Third Republic, the Parisian government tried to assimilate Algerians into the French culture, but their policies were frustrated by white colonists who blocked funding for new schools. After the war for independence, Algeria introduced several policies to reform and strengthen the educational structure. The Ministry of Education was created in 1963.
Students are primarily taught in Arabic, although teachers have been allowed to teach inBerberTamazightas of 2003. Berber teaching is allowed in Algerian schools to remove the complaints ofArabizationand need for non-Algerian teachers.
Before colonialism, Algeria was home primarily to Arabic and Berber speakers. Due to Algeria's French colonial past, French was the first foreign language taught in Algerian schools. However, a month before independence, Algerian revolutionary leaders declared that the future State would be committed to arabisation.Ahmed Ben Bella implemented linguistic arabisation laws in primary schools and required teaching in Arabic on all levels from 1963-1964. In 2004, language restrictions were enforced that made 90% of all teaching in Algerian schools in Arabic. In November 2005, Parliament passed laws that banned private schools from teaching in any other language but Arabic.
Linguistics has been a source of contention for the Algerian educational system. The shift from bilingualism in French and Arabic to monolingualism in Arabic has created issues with graduates trying to enter the economic market.
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n 2014, the Algerian economy expanded by 4%, up from 2.8% in 2013. Growth was driven mainly by the recovering oil and gas sector and further economic expansion of 3.9% is forecast in 2015 and 4.0% in 2016.
In 2012, the Algerian economy grew by 2.5%, up slightly from 2.4% in 2011. Excluding hydrocarbons, growth has been estimated at 5.8% (up from 5.7% in 2011). Inflation is increasing and is estimated at 8.9% (up from 4.49% in 2011). Despite the financial authorities’ good performance, thanks to modernisation reforms, the budget deficit widened to 3.3% of GDP in 2012 (as against 1.3% in 2011) due to the continuation of the expansionary fiscal policy initiated in 2011 to meet strong social demands in terms of purchasing power, jobs and housing. The oil and gas sector is the country’s main source of revenues, generated about 70% of total budget receipts. The economy is projected to grow by 3.2% in 2013 and by 4.0% in 2014. The country’s external position remained comfortable in 2012, with a trade surplus of about USD 27.18 billion. The current-account surplus is estimated at 8.2% of GDP and official foreign-exchange reserves have been estimated at USD 190.7 billion at end-December 2012, or the equivalent of more than three years of imports of non-factor goods and services. Oil and gas export earnings made up more than 97% of total exports.
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