GeographyChad is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by six countries: Libya, Sudan, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger. It is the largest landlocked country of the African continent. The climate in Chad ranges from desert in the north to tropical in the south. The terrain is comprised of desert in the north, mountains in the northwest, arid plains in the center, and lowlands in the south. Due to the contrasting climates and terrain, the population is unevenly distributed with the highest density in the southwest, particularly around Lake Chad and points south. The area to the north is the least densely populated because it is the dry Saharan zone. Chad was named for Lake Chad, which lies along the country’s western border. The word “tsade” means “large body of water” or “lake” in several native languages.
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HistoryChad was under France’s control until 1960 when it gained its independence and has suffered decades of civil war, invasions by Libya, and ongoing government instability ever since. Chad formed a presidential republic with a democratic constitution and held presidential elections in 1996 and 2001. In 1998, a rebellion broke out in northern Chad and continues to flare up sporadically despite several peace agreements between the government and the insurgents. In 2006, President Idriss Deby won another controversial election after he held a referendum at the end of his previous term that successfully removed constitutional term limits. Another year of rebellion followed and ended with the capital experiencing a significant insurrection in early 2008. Chad’s rapprochement with Sudan in 2010 facilitated a peace agreement between the Darfur rebel group and the Sudanese government and has quelled any further serious rebel threats. Then in late 2015, the Chadian government imposed a state of emergency in the Lake Chad region after several attacks by the terrorist group Boko Haram, including bombings in Chad’s capital, N’Djamena. In 2016, Deby was reelected to his fifth term as president in a peaceful but controversial election.
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President Idriss Deby (BBC, 2018)
(Hassan, 2015)
This video provides a brief glimpse of a few important places and elements in Chad including the capital city of N'Djmena, Lake Chad, and an oil production site.
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(Fuchs, 2016)
This video is about a refugee camp for people from the Darfur region and its new online, university level higher education program that offers instruction in English.
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Chad’s limited resources have been strained and tensions have risen due to the 320,000 refugees from Sudan and more than 75,000 from the Central African Republic in Chad as of October 2017. Refugees fled to Chad in 2013 to escape worsening violence on the Darfar region of Sudan because Chad, compared to other states in the region, was relatively stable in 2012. However, fighting between government forces, opposition groups, and violence between communities have left nearly 60,000 of its citizens displaced in the eastern part of the country.
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The majority of the population is Muslim at 52.1 percent with Protestant and Roman Catholic as the next most practiced religions at 23.9 percent and 20 percent, respectively. Historically the south of Chad has been mainly populated by Christians of Black African descent and the north has been mainly populated by Muslims of Arab descent. The many ethnic groups and languages and the two main religions have created tension and caused there to be little national cohesion that continues today (Anderson, 2008, p.12).
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This chart was created using statistics from the CIA World Factbook (2014-2015).
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(UNICEF, 2015)
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EducationAnderson (2018) observed that most people speak of N’Djamena as the only place to learn the English language (p. 18)The education system in Chad is modeled after the French system with either French or Arabic used as the medium of instruction. It consists of six years of primary school that starts at the age of six, and seven years of general secondary education or technical and vocational training that varies in duration.
The overall state of education in Chad is extremely poor. Development of the education system has been hindered by wars, limited financing, overcrowded classrooms, and the lack of qualified teachers (Safosto, 2018, p.3). This has made access to education very difficult and caused over 50% of people to not go beyond the primary school level. As of 2016, the estimated literacy of Chad’s total population was 22.3 percent, out of which only 14 percent of women were literate. It also estimates the school life expectancy to be 9 years for males and 6 years for females. English is usually offered as a foreign language in secondary education settings or higher. As for English in higher education, there are only two universities in Chad that have English departments, the University of N’Djamena and University of Toukra. There are other institutions that provide training in English for certain jobs, such as teachers, administrators, and technicians. However there is minimal access to resources for English language learning in Chad, especially for people living in rural areas. Anderson (2018) observed that most people speak of N’Djamena as the only place to learn the English language (p. 18) |