Éducation à la résilience et niveau d’adaptation scolaire des enfants réfugiés à l’école primaire : cas des élèves réfugiés centrafricains à l’Est du Cameroun

Abstract

The present thesis is titled « education to the resilience and adaptation of refugee children in Primary schools: the case study of refugee children from the Central African Republic in government primary schools in the East Cameroon ». It was noticed that, despite the efforts made by the government of Cameroon and the international organisations to apply the social inclusion policy of integrating refugee children in the primary schools, most of them drop out or fail to adapt in schools. To conduct our research we elaborated the following question: Is there a significant link between education to resilience and the adaptation of refugee children in the primary schools? This psych-pedagogical and interactionist orientation aimed at showing that there is a significant connection between education to resilience and the adaptation of refugee children in primary schools. Thus the following general hypothesis: there is a significant link between education to resilience and the adaptation of refugee children in the primary school. To test this hypothesis, we used a three step-approach: The first step consisted in justifying that link through theories. The second step consisted in defining some elements of the methodology used. This means that our research work is mainly correlative. We opted for quantitative and qualitative methods. We carried out the survey with a questionnaire and an interview guide. Our respondents are 38 teachers and 4 head-teachers in the four government primary schools of Garoua-Boulai town. The third step consisted in analysing these results through statistic tool, the Chi-square test, in order to show the extent to which there is a bond between the two variables and in interpreting the results. These findings allowed us to conclude that psycho-affectivity practices are insufficient or almost inexistent. Children traumatised by war need a secure, competitive and motivating environment so that they can fit in the process of school resilience. However, this resilience, with all the protective factors is not well known by school staffs. We suggested to the Government to introduce a specific programme of in-service training and refresher courses for teachers in order to promote some psycho-affectivity practices, which will transform them as the true instructors of resilience. Education to resilience will be possible if teachers are sufficiently tooled to answer of the needs of refugee children.