ANTANANARIVO, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Private Catholic schools in Madagascar have decided not to follow the educational reform advocated by the government in its "education-for-all" program in 2003.

    The head of Catholic Church, Mgr. Odon Razanakolona, said in a press release issued on Saturday that Catholic bishops decided at the end of a three-day conference, which closed here on Friday, that Catholic schools would not carry out the educational reform advocated by the Madagascan government in the next school year.

    According to the government educational program, schools should use Malagasy as the language of instruction, the length of primary school would be expanded to seven years and the reform would be carried out in the 2008-2009 school year at 20 boarding schools for the first stage.

    However, the catholic schools, which represented 40 percent of private schools in Madagascar, decided to maintain the former education system under the ground that they had not been convinced by the reform, especially the use of Malagasy as teaching language and the expansion of the school years, according to the catholic radio, Radio Don Bosco, on Saturday.

    But they promised to continue their cooperation with the Ministry of Education and carry out the reform in their schools when they could see the effect of the reform after certain years.

    In Madagascar, national education was divided into four steps, namely primary school, the college, high school and university.

    Under the education law amended by the Madagascan parliament last June, the primary school years were expanded to seven years instead of five years, the college years were cut to three years rather than four years while the high school years were put at only two years from three years before.

    The parliament also decided that Malagasy was the teaching language for the first five years while French and English continued to be subjects for teaching.

    The reform should begin first in 20 boarding schools in the 2008-2009 school year with assistance of the World Bank and 45 more schools would carry out the reform in the following year.

    President Marc Ravalomanana had said that the reform was aimed at building competent schools with an education system meeting international standards in terms of quality and efficiency so that Madagascar would become competitive nation in the global economy.

    The World Bank and United Nations Fund for Children provided grants of 125.1 million U.S. dollars to support the educational reform in the island country.