The École normale de Rufisque was a teacher-training institute for women from French West Africa in
Rufisque
Rufisque (; Wolof: Tëngeéj) is a city in the Dakar region of western Senegal, at the base of the Cap-Vert Peninsula east of Dakar, the capital. It has a population of 295,459 (2023 census). ,
Senegal
Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country in West Africa, situated on the Atlantic Ocean coastline. It borders Mauritania to Mauritania–Senegal border, the north, Mali to Mali–Senegal border, the east, Guinea t ...
. It existed from 1938 to 1958.
History
The École normale de Rufisque for girls was founded thirty-five years after its equivalent for boys, the
École normale William Ponty. Run by the colonial administration, the teacher-training college offered the highest level of education girls could get in the areas of
West Africa colonised by France.
The first director of the school was from 1938 to 1945 was a Frenchwoman
Germaine Le Goff, who had been commissioned by the Senegalese government to create its first
normal school for teachers.
The pupils were girls and young women aged between thirteen and twenty, who were from a variety of West African countries.
 In the first few years of the school's foundation, a large number of pupils attended from the southern colonies such as
Dahomey
The Kingdom of Dahomey () was a West African List of kingdoms in Africa throughout history, kingdom located within present-day Benin that existed from approximately 1600 until 1904. It developed on the Abomey Plateau amongst the Fon people in ...
and a few directly from Senegal. The training scheme lasted for four years. The girls were only allowed to speak French to each other and wore school uniforms they had made themselves. A boarding school was attached to the school and pupils were separated from their families during the school year, from November to July. Graduation ceremonies were shared with the boys school.
During the Second World War, the school struggled without financial resources.
A total of around 800 students graduated from the École normale de Rufisque during its existence from 1938 to 1958. One of the first teachers to graduate from the school was
Ndèye Coumba Mbengue Diakhaté.
Curriculum
The curriculum of the school was a colonial product, based on nineteenth-century French educational practice. Its established aims were to train women who wanted to be elementary school teachers, as well as preparing women to be the wives of successful men.
Legacy
The school building that has been preserved and has housed the ''
Lycée Abdoulaye Sadji'' since 1972.
Notable alumni
*
Mariama Bâ
Mariama Bâ (April 17, 1929 – August 17, 1981) was a Senegalese author and feminist, whose two French-language novels were both translated into more than a dozen languages. Born in Dakar, Senegal, Dakar, Senegal, she was raised a Muslim.
Her ...
- Senegalese writer.
*
Jeanne Martin Cissé
Jeanne Martin Cissé (6 April 1926 – 21 February 2017) was a Guinea, Guinean teacher and nationalist politician who served as ambassador to the United Nations and in 1972 was the first woman to serve as President of the United Nations Security ...
- Guinean politician.
*
Ndèye Coumba Mbengue Diakhaté.
*
Fatou Djibo - Nigerien women's rights activist and teacher.
*
Annette Mbaye d'Erneville - Senegalese writer.
*
Safi Faye
Safi Faye (November 22, 1943 – February 22, 2023) was a Senegalese film director and ethnologist.Petrolle, p. 177. She was the first African woman to direct a commercially distributed feature film, '' Kaddu Beykat'', which was released in 1975. ...
- Senegalese film director and ethnologist.
*
Jeanne Gervais
Jeanne Gervais, ''née'' Jeanne Ahou Siefer-N’Dri (June 6, 1922 – December 9, 2012) was an Ivorian politician and the first woman minister in Côte d'Ivoire.
Born in Grand-Bassam, Gervais was the daughter of a French father and a Baoulé ...
- Ivorian politician.
*
Aminata Tall - Senegalese politician.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ecole Normale De Rufisque
Schools in Senegal
category:Teacher training