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Welcome to the first Focus on Africa discussion for the Future Africa Ambassadors. Through this series, we will be digging deep into some key African development themes and sharing valuable opinions

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Focus on Africa - 1: Education

So much of the global conversations about education in Africa for several decades have focused on inequitable access to education, particularly among girls, and for very good reason. In spite of efforts by several groups, there has been little movement in the proportion of children of primary school age (6-11) who are out of school, the proportion of adolescents of lower secondary school age (12-14), and the proportion of youth (15-17) who are out of school. In its February 2018 fact sheet (http://uis.unesco.org/sites/default/files/documents/fs48-one-five-children-adolescents-youth-out-school-2018-en.pdf) using 2016 base data, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics reports cumulatively that about 263 million children, adolescents and youth worldwide are out of school; that is one in every five. In Africa, the numbers are grimmer: one in every three.

However, the focus on enabling universal access to education could sometimes distract from the equally important mission of ensuring success through education. The World Bank Group, in its 2018 World Development Report (http://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2018) titled “Learning to Realize Education’s Promise”, warned of a “learning crisis in global education”. The crux of the report was that in spite of the several years spent in school, millions of children are not achieving the basics of reading, writing or solving simple math problems; these challenges are also accentuated by children living in conflict zones, vulnerable children, children living in poverty and children living with disabilities. In sub-Saharan Africa, less than 7% of children in late primary school are proficient in reading, and less than 14% are proficient in Mathematics.

The data from UNESCO is even more damning: its September 2017 factsheet (http://uis.unesco.org/sites/default/files/documents/fs46-more-than-half-children-not-learning-en-2017.pdf) reports that more than 617 million children and adolescents worldwide are not achieving minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics, but the crisis is most pronounced in sub-Saharan Africa where 88% of all children and adolescents will not be able to read proficiently by the end of their primary and lower secondary education. 90% of girls fall into this category, while 85% of boys are equally affected. It is very curious to note that these statistics do not simply refer to students who are not enrolled in school; it is students who are enrolled in school who are struggling to learn. In her analysis (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2017/10/06/figures-of-the-week-africa-education-world-development-report-2018/) of the 2018 World Development Report, Mariama Sow writing for Brookings states that learning gaps remain high in sub-Saharan Africa in spite of school attendance as many children are not fully equipped to learn because of poor quality of teaching, illness, malnutrition and income deprivation. Where teachers are not well-educated themselves, it is inevitable that their students will struggle to learn. In their analysis (http://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/learning-realize-education-s-promise) of the same report, researchers Deon Filmer and Halsey Rogers assert that “schooling that does not result in learning is not just a missed opportunity – it is a great injustice”.

The benefits of a good education cannot be overstated; Nelson Mandela’s famous words always ring true: “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. Filmer and Rogers conclude their analysis by stating that the payoff for individuals include employment, higher earnings, health and poverty reduction, while societies benefit through long-term economic growth, innovation, strong institutions and social cohesion. But to attain all these, every country must do the hard work of ensuring that all children everywhere are enrolled in schools and learning.

Prompts:

1. Share your own experience either with struggling to learn in school, or observing an inefficient school.

2. Comment on the brief, either focusing on the challenges with access to education or attaining minimum learning standards.

3. Post a question that arises in your mind after reading the brief.

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