Bulletin de l'instruction primaire des Établissements français dans l'Inde.

Scope and content: This series was started in July 1894 by Ferrier, the Inspector of primary education. The aim was to impart pedagogical skills to the teachers and to keep them abreast of the rules and administrative instructions that concerned them. In an extract of Ferrier's report published in the 1st issue of the Bulletin, he justifies the need for the journal: The staff is full of good will, but they have not been trained in the “écoles normales” [elite higher education institutions], so they often lack pedagogical skills. Unlike their counterparts in France, they would also be unable to adapt the guidelines found in pedagogical journals to their own requirements. Hence the need for a journal that leads teachers to study methods that are particularly relevant to education in the colonies: language, geography, history, etc. He goes on to say that while he himself would contribute as much as possible to the journal, the teachers should also write about the difficulties they face, how they have overcome them, how they have designed their language lessons etc., so that their experience can benefit everyone. The Bulletin would thus become a source of pedagogical advice and administrative information and would constitute one of the most interesting pieces of school records (see pp. 2-4 of BIPEFI (1894), no. 1). An editorial board composed of the director and deputy director of the Calvé school and directors of primary schools in Pondichéry was instituted to examine the contrubutions and approve them for publication. It was planned to publish the journal monthly and print it at the government printing press, with a print-run of around 200 copies. The copies were destined for all the schools. The 1st page of every issue of the Bulletin carries these instructions: This Bulletin, property of the school, will be carefully preserved by the Director, who is responsible for it and for handing it over to his successor in due course. The directors have the duty to read the Bulletin and to have their assistants read it. The FIP library's holding for the journal is only for the years 1894-1897. It is not clear for how long the Bulletin continued to be published. The French National Library seems to have issues for Sept. 1898, 1899, Jan-Feb 1904 and May-August 1906, some of which constitute the report of the state of the schools Rapport sur l'état et les besoins des écoles publiques et sur l'état des écoles privées (From 1898 to 1908, the Inspecteur Primaire was also the Chef du Service de l'Instruction Publique). No other information is available.