Africa: Resolving the Paradox in African Education Systems

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The 37 Ordinary Regular Session of the African Heads of State and Government will convene here in Addis Ababa from the 17th of February to 18th 2024. Reports coming out of the headquarters of the organization indicate that the AU Summit will pay a special attention to education and training with the theme ” Educate an African fit for the 21st century: Building resilient education systems for increased access to inclusive, lifelong, quality and relevant learning in Africa.”

H.E. Faki underscored that success in the education sector will have significant knock-on effects on sectors such as security, control of population growth, the empowerment of women and girls, agriculture, digitalization, and migration, among others. “Properly conducted and implemented in an orderly manner, educational reforms will reverse the trend towards poverty and enhance the attractiveness of Africa, in terms of investment and therefore, the creation of prosperity. Our theme for the Year 2024 is devoted to pondering over an in-depth reform of education in Africa, with the prospect of training young people endowed with intellectual, scientific and ethical capacities to serve the transformation of our continent to make it a comfortable and productive living space.”

Recent reviews of the Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA) and Education 2030 Framework for Action, the AU-UNESCO continental report of the CESA and SDG4 and a joint AU-UNICEF report on Transforming Education in Africa, point to the fact that over the past ten years, African governments have undertaken a wide range of programs and policy-level efforts to ensure that no child is left behind in access to education. There have been substantial efforts on the continent to ensure access, completion, and quality of basic education for all.

AU notes that overall, the proportion of out-of-school children had decreased until around 2010. The completion rates had improved in primary and lower secondary education, as well as the access to and the participation in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET). There was also noticeable progress in the access to pre-primary education and in adult literacy and lifelong learning. With regards to school feeding, low-income countries have doubled their national budget expenditures to Home Grown School Feeding (HGSF) from 17 percent to 33 percent between 2013 and 2020. In lower middle-income countries, national budgets now account for 88% of school meals financing, up from 55% in 2013.

However, despite efforts and progress made, three main indicators ring a warning bell:

Acceding to the AU, although the out of school rate, i.e. the “proportion of children and young people in the official age range for the given level of education who are not enrolled in pre- primary, primary, secondary or higher levels of education” keeps steadily decreasing, especially for the primary level, the absolute number has reached the alarming global estimate of 98 million in Africa.

The learning poverty rate, i.e. “the share of children who cannot read a simple text with comprehension by age 10 was the highest in sub-Saharan Africa before the COVID-19 pandemic, at 86%. This rate is likely to have worsened after the pandemic, estimated now at 90%. This means that nine out of ten children cannot read a simple text with comprehension by age 10.

Africa will need 17 million additional teachers in order to achieve universal primary and secondary education by 2030.

At the global level, and within the Global Education Coordination Mechanism framework, led by UNESCO, the African Union has been a key player in the regional coordination of CESA and SDG4 support for and cooperation among countries. This is through convening Member States and partners and making critical contributions to promoting evidence use, priority setting, peer learning and monitoring mechanism.

Similarly, at the African Union’s Specialized Technical Committee on Education, Science, Technology and Innovation (STC-EST4) held on 1st and 2nd September 2022, Ministers, in their declaration on Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, requested the AU Commission to facilitate the adoption by the AU of an education related theme for the year for 2024, to address the burden and disruptions caused by COVID-19 on education systems, promote the systematic implementation of transforming education in Africa and for accelerated implementation of CESA 2016-2025 and SDG 4.

Progress in education has a far-reaching impact on all the other aspects of human capital development. The large population of young people in Africa is a powerful source of economic growth and progress, provided it receives quality education and skills for the 21st century job opportunities. Investing in education is thus, the most effective investment in the fight against poverty, reducing gender inequalities, enabling people to survive and thrive, and helping to improve socio-economic development. Education is also associated with more peaceful communities, greater civic engagement, and stronger democracies.

Year 2024, dedicated to education in Africa, will be an opportunity for the African Union to re- galvanizes Member States towards the achievement of CESA and SDG4 targets. Importantly, this will come as a follow-up to the STC-EST4, AU Declarations, the Urgent Call for Action by the SDG4 High-level Steering Committee and the UN Secretary General’s Vision Statement on Transforming Education. It will engage the AU Commission to mobilize governments and development partners to rethink the models of education and skill development needed for the Africa We Want in the 21st century.

What are the major or challenges inhibiting the growth and development of basic and higher level education both in Africa and Ethiopia? The author wishes to deliberate on some of these challenges faced by almost all African countries with the intention of suggesting some basic solutions.

Most African education systems are inherited from their colonial rulers and ae therefore irrelevant to the development needs of the country and for producing highly qualified experts who can resolve problems based on the objective realities of their countries. Disregard to traditional sources of knowledge and low level of research on transfer of both modern and traditional skills in appropriate technology, westernization of social values and disregard to traditional heritages had forced many African countries to imitate the so called developed western countries in an unprecedented neo-colonial and manipulative “modernization” policies imported into Africa.

On the other hand climate change induced drought and flooding, ethnic based conflicts which had continued to result in the displacement of populations in these countries, political conflicts in countries like Sudan, South Sudan, Libya Equatorial Guinea, Somalia, and DRC resulted in destruction of schools and proliferation of IDPs across these countries.

It is to be recalled that the advent of COVID-19 and other types of pandemics have continued to disrupt normal and conducive educational environment in many African countries.

African educational systems also suffer from the disparity between theoretical and practical knowledge. African universities and institutes of higher learning stress on theoretical knowledge with less emphasis on problem solving practical knowledge.

Although the government of Ethiopia has made commendable efforts in promoting quality education throughout the country, over the last couple of years, internal ethnic based conflicts and the war in the northern part of the country had inflicted devastating damage on educational, health and social service infrastructures forcing millions of students to remain out of school.

African institutes of higher learning have so far done very little in sharing experience and other forms of resources like research findings in many of these countries. There has not been any level of meaningful cooperation on sharing skills on child development, addressing the challenges of students with special needs, promotion of refugee education and designing special education system for pastoral societies across Africa.

What are some of the solutions that could be suggested for resolving the shortfalls in the African education systems? The author is of the opinion that pan African universities established across the continent need to be strengthened so that they can conduct researches on viable educational systems that are more relevant for Africa.

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