articles about education in africa

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Article Contents

1. introduction, 2. a brief review of the current state of education in africa, 3. what do earlier syntheses say about education in africa, 6. discussion.

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Education in Africa: What Are We Learning?

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• Supplementary Data

David K Evans, Amina Mendez Acosta, Education in Africa: What Are We Learning?, Journal of African Economies , Volume 30, Issue 1, January 2021, Pages 13–54, https://doi.org/10.1093/jae/ejaa009

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Countries across Africa continue to face major challenges in education. In this review, we examine 145 recent empirical studies (from 2014 onward) on how to increase access to and improve the quality of education across the continent, specifically examining how these studies update previous research findings. We find that 64% of the studies evaluate government-implemented programs, 36% include detailed cost analysis and 35% evaluate multiple treatment arms. We identify several areas where new studies provide rigorous evidence on topics that do not figure prominently in earlier evidence syntheses. New evidence shows promising impacts of structured pedagogy interventions (which typically provide a variety of inputs, such as lesson plans and training for teachers together with new materials for students) and of mother tongue instruction interventions, as well as from a range of teacher programs, including both remunerative (pay-for-performance of various designs) and non-remunerative (coaching and certain types of training) programs. School feeding delivers gains in both access and learning. New studies also show long-term positive impacts of eliminating school fees for primary school and positive impacts of eliminating fees in secondary school. Education technology interventions have decidedly mixed impacts, as do school grant programs and programs providing individual learning inputs (e.g., uniforms or textbooks).

Education has expanded dramatically in Sub-Saharan Africa over the past half century. From 1970 to 2010, the percentage of children across the region who complete primary school rose by almost 50% (from 46% of children to 68%). The proportion of children completing lower secondary school nearly doubled (from 22% to 40%). 1 Despite these massive gains, nearly one in three children still does not complete primary school. Efforts to measure the quality of that schooling have revealed high numbers of students who have limited literacy or numeracy skills even after several years of school ( Bold et al. , 2017 ; Adeniran et al. , 2020 ). The international community has characterised this situation as a ‘learning crisis’ ( World Bank, 2018a ). The past two decades have seen a large rise in evidence on how to most effectively expand access and increase learning, 2 but actual changes in access and learning in that period have not shown dramatic improvements. 3

In this paper, we synthesise recent research on how to expand access to education and improve the quality of learning in Africa. 4 Our analysis reveals two trends. First, we observe growing sophistication in evaluating education programs in Africa. An increasing number of studies not only examine whether a given intervention is effective but also test multiple permutations. For example, Mbiti et al. (2019b) test two alternative teacher incentive programs and Duflo et al. (2020) report on four alternative programs to target instruction to students’ learning levels. Evaluations are also testing alternative combinations of interventions, such as teacher incentives, school grants or the combination of the two in Tanzania ( Mbiti et al. , 2019a ). Other studies compare alternative programs to achieve a common goal, as in education subsidies versus the government HIV curriculum to reduce sexually transmitted infections in Duflo et al. (2015b ). Testing multiple treatments is certainly not unprecedented in African countries, but it is growing more common. 5 Second, we observe growth in evidence that previously was largely confined to other regions of the world, including early child development, mother tongue instruction and public–private partnerships.

In terms of substantive findings, we identify that certain multi-faceted programs deliver large gains in education quality: a program that includes teacher training, teacher coaching, semi-scripted lessons, learning materials and mother tongue instruction delivered sizeable gains in literacy both as a pilot and at-scale ( Piper et al. , 2018a , 2018b ); the average impacts for second-grade students in Kiswahili and English are both above the 99th percentile of education interventions ( Evans and Yuan, 2020 ; Kraft, 2020 ). A literacy program providing a similar array of supports delivered literacy gains in Uganda ( Brunette et al. , 2019 ). The combination of teacher incentives and school grants delivered higher learning gains than either on its own in Tanzania ( Mbiti et al. , 2019a ).

We also observe consistent gains across various other types of programs: mother tongue instruction seems to provide consistent learning gains across programs, eliminating school fees offers consistent gains in access, and school feeding offers consistent gains in access and learning. There are relatively few school construction studies, but they also tend to yield gains in both access and learning. Other inputs are inconsistent: cash transfers are reasonably consistent in increasing access to school but not at improving learning, which may be unsurprising given that the programs may relax an economic constraint to access for the children but do not directly affect the learning process beyond that. Similarly, eliminating school fees has inconsistent impacts on the quality of education.

Our collection of evidence does not offer a single solution that will apply in every school system. Programs adapted to new contexts will often yield distinct impacts. In our discussion section, we elaborate on factors to consider when translating a program from one setting to another. Still, this accumulation of recent evidence offers promising areas for investment and wide avenues for further study.

This review updates findings from earlier reviews with results from new research. Evans and Popova (2016b) synthesise evidence from six reviews on how to improve learning outcomes from low- and middle-income countries, only one of which— Conn (2017) —focuses exclusively on evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa, while others include significant research from the region. 6 This review focuses on how research in Africa from the past 5 years updates our ideas on making education effective and accessible.

In Section 2 , we briefly review the current state of education in Africa. In Section 3 , we summarise earlier evidence on how to expand access to and improve the quality of education on the continent. In Section 4 , we discuss our strategy for collecting and analysing new research. In Section 5 , we synthesise the findings. In Section 6 , we draw conclusions from our findings, highlight areas for needed future research and discuss implications for policy.

Primary Completion Rates in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1971–2015 Source: Author tabulations using data from World Development Indicators (2020) .

Lower Secondary Completion Rates in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1971–2015 Source: Author tabulations using data from World Development Indicators (2020) .

Education in Africa has expanded dramatically in recent years ( Figures 1 and 2 ). The median proportion of children completing primary school across countries has risen from 27% to 67% between 1971 and 2015 ( World Bank, 2020 ). The median proportion of children completing lower secondary school across countries has also risen dramatically, from a mere 5% in 1971 to 40% in 2015. 7 These are enormous increases; they also demonstrate just how far there is to go. Nearly one in three children in the median country does not complete primary school, and three in five fail to complete lower secondary. Africa is the lowest performing region in the world in terms of school access by a significant margin ( Figure 3 ): for primary completion, all other countries achieve higher than 90%. For lower secondary, the next lowest performing region has a completion rate of 75%, more than 70% higher than Africa’s numbers. Median completion rates at both levels of education have been increasing at a roughly consistent rate between 2000 and 2015, between 1.2 (primary) and 1.1 (lower secondary) percentage points a year. With linear improvements at that same rate, Africa would achieve universal primary education in 28 years and universal lower secondary education in 56 years. Yet, access will likely not increase at a linear rate, given the increasing marginal cost of enroling the most difficult-to-reach children (the ‘last mile’ challenge), leading these to be underestimates.

Primary and Lower Secondary Completion Rates across Regions in 2015 Source: Author tabulations using data from World Development Indicators (2020) .

At the same time, the education quality in Africa also suffers. Recent evidence across seven countries in Sub-Saharan Africa found that in third grade, less than two in three children could read a letter and only about half of the children could read a word or put numbers in order ( Bold et al. , 2017 ; Table 1 ). 8 The harmonised learning outcomes, an effort by Patrinos and Angrist (2018) to combine data from different tests across regions, finds that learning outcomes for countries in Sub-Saharan Africa concentrated in the bottom half of the learning spectrum; although they are not substantively lower than what would be expected for Africa’s income levels ( Figure 4 ). A combined measure of schooling quantity and quality—the learning-adjusted years of schooling ( Filmer et al. , 2020 )—shows more African countries performing below what their income level would predict ( Figure 5 ). Further, the quality of learning outcomes does not appear to be rising in recent years. Le Nestour et al. (2020 ) document steady increases in adult literacy rates between 1940 and 2000, mostly linked to increases in enrollment. However, the test score data from the World Bank’s Human Capital Project show that for 35 African countries with two data points between 2000 and 2017, scores fell for 18 countries and rose for 17 countries ( Table 1 ; Angrist et al. , 2019 ). Some of the inconsistent gains in learning may result from expanding access: as children with less preparation gain access to school and participate in tests, average scores could fall even while learning is rising. Despite weaknesses in education quality, recent studies demonstrate significant returns to education in Africa ( Appendix Section 1, Supplementary Material ).

Change in Learning Outcomes in African Countries for Two Time Periods between 2000 and 2017

Source: Authors’ construction, using all African countries with at least two data points. For countries with more than two data points, we used the first and last data point. Data provided by Angrist et al. (2019) .

Test Scores for Countries at All Income Levels around the World Relative to Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa Source: Authors’ construction using the harmonised test scores from the Human Capital Project ( World Bank, 2018b,c ).

Learning-adjusted Years of Schooling for 158 Countries around the World Relative to Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa Source: Authors’ construction using the data from the Human Capital Project ( World Bank, 2018b,c ).

This is not the first study to synthesise evidence on education, even in Africa. Bashir et al. (2018) provide a comprehensive descriptive analysis of the current state of education across the continent, highlighting that many children remain out of school, that learning levels are low for those in school and that ‘the problem of low learning emerges in the early grades’. In terms of priorities for improvement, Evans and Popova (2016b) review the following six syntheses of evidence on how to improve the quality of education in low- and middle-income countries: Conn (2017) , Glewwe et al. (2014) , Kremer et al. (2013) , Krishnaratne et al. (2013) , McEwan (2015) and Ganimian and Murnane (2016) . Another review focused on learning, released slightly later, was Masino and Niño-Zarazúa (2016) . Across the reviews that focused on boosting learning, the authors recommend many different interventions, but Evans and Popova (2016b) identify two classes of interventions that are recommended with some consistency: pedagogical interventions that help teachers to tailor instruction to student learning levels and individualised, repeated efforts to improve teacher’s ability and practice.

Of these reviews, only Conn (2017) focuses exclusively on Sub-Saharan Africa, although several others draw heavily on evidence from the region. Based on a meta-analysis of 56 studies available through 2013, Conn finds the largest learning impacts for programs that ‘alter teacher pedagogy or classroom instructional techniques’. Snilstveit et al. (2015) is the most comprehensive review, examining 238 studies focused on both access and learning across low- and middle-income countries (not exclusive to Sub-Saharan Africa). 9 They find the strongest, most consistent gains in access from cash transfer programs and the best gains to quality from ‘structured pedagogy’ programs; those that provide a variety of inputs to improve teaching, such as lesson plans and training for teachers together with new materials for students (similarly to Conn, 2017 ). They also find promising evidence that school feeding programs can increase both access and learning. Glewwe and Muralidharan (2016) also examine both access and learning, finding strong gains from improved pedagogy—especially for foundational literacy and numeracy skills, improved governance—including teacher accountability and cost reductions.

In this review, we complement this previous work with evidence published in 2014 or later, most of which came out later than the scope of the searches conducted by previous reviews.

4.1. Inclusion criteria

For this paper, we limited our focus to research studies that (i) were published in 2014 or later, either as a journal article, a conference paper or a working paper; (ii) were conducted in or used data from at least one African country; and (iii) report on outcomes from education-related interventions. We included interventions that may not focus exclusively on education outcomes but do report them, such as cash transfers and school feeding programs. We also limited our search to papers that include a quantitative analysis of results that seeks to establish a counterfactual including a variety of estimation designs such as randomised controlled trial, difference-in-differences, matching, regression discontinuity and instrumental variable analysis. As a result, studies that report purely descriptive data or carried out a case study were not included in our primary analysis. Some descriptive studies are used to provide context to our discussion of results.

4.2. Search strategy

We began by compiling a database of papers that complied with the above criteria from published systematic reviews such as Conn (2014) , Glewwe et al. (2014) , Snilsveit et al. (2015) , Evans and Popova (2016b) and Evans and Yuan (2019) . We also reviewed papers from the National Bureau of Economic Research working paper series, the World Bank Policy Research Working Paper Series, the Centre for the Study of African Economies 2017–2020 conference papers and the North East Universities Development Consortium conference papers 2017–2019. We included papers identified in the African Education Research Database ( Education Sub Saharan Africa, 2020 ). Finally, we searched Google Scholar and journal databases using variations of the search terms ‘education’, ‘learning’ and ‘students’ and confirmed the location of the intervention or the source of the data used. The journal databases searched included the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Political Economy, the Journal of African Economies, World Development, the Economics of Education Review, the Journal of Development Effectiveness, the International Journal of Educational Development and the International Journal of Educational Research. We included studies from other journals as turned up by our database searches. We also added studies known to the authors that are eligible but did not come up in the original search. We conducted the search between September 2019 and May 2020 and compiled a list of 195 papers eligible for review. See Appendix Table 2 for the breakdown of the papers by provenance. In this study, we review 145 of those papers on topics of current interest in education (excluding, for example, a study on the historical impact of Christian missions on education performance in later generations).

4.3. Analytical strategy

The purpose of this review is to understand the direction and scope of recent education research in Africa, including the choice of topics and interventions studied, the countries where these studies are being conducted and the key trends and messages in their findings.

In order to answer these questions, we reviewed the title, abstract and full text of the papers to extract and code the following data: country of intervention, year of publication, type of intervention (if there is one), type of intervention target (student, teacher, household, school or system), type of outcomes reported (learning, access or both), education level of intervention (pre-primary, primary, secondary, tertiary, vocational or adult learning), education level of outcomes reported, research method, scale (i.e., number of treatment arms and the size of the treatment sample) and key findings. We also encoded the choice of implementation partner (government agencies, non-government organisations, other partners or researchers only) and any cost-effectiveness data provided in the paper.

We grouped the studies according to common themes and interventions and present a narrative review of the findings. We avoid the other two main types of review (meta-analysis and vote counting) because of large variation in the design of interventions within categories: an average effect of a teacher training intervention—for example—is not informative when one is averaging across programs as varied as a one-time half-day lecture for teachers and a full-year program of classroom observations with feedback. 10 This narrative approach is more helpful for solving some problems and less helpful for solving others. Our approach is intended to help readers to update their prior beliefs within key classes of educational interventions that are commonly—and in many cases—increasingly used across the continent. It can guide the design of educational interventions within categories: for example, many countries have cash transfer programs or school feeding programs and this analysis can guide decisions about the optimal design of those programs. On the other hand, not providing meta-analytic results means that this review will not answer the question, should a given country implement a cash transfer program or a school feeding program (i.e., is the expected impact of one class of program greater than the other)? While there is certainly insight to be gleaned from that approach (and other reviews have used it, including McEwan, 2015 ; Snilstveit et al. , 2015 ; and Conn, 2017 ), the wide variety of designs and effect sizes within categories incline us—in this review—to focus on characterising the range of evidence within groups and encouraging researchers and policymakers to dig deeper into individual studies that may be most relevant to a context and class of program that they are considering.

4.4. The studies

The collection of studies reveals interesting findings on what is studied and where. We identify a high concentration of studies in Kenya (41) and Uganda (21) with fewer but still significant numbers of studies in Ethiopia (17), Ghana (15), Nigeria (13) and Tanzania (13) ( Figure 6 ). Most studies we identify focus on primary education (61%) and almost a quarter of studies examine secondary education (24%). Fewer studies examine pre-primary (8%), with just a handful examining tertiary, adult education or technical-vocational training (6% and under each) ( Figure 7 ).

Distribution of Identified Education Studies (2014–2020) across Countries in Africa. The countries with the most studies are Kenya (41), Uganda (21), Ethiopia (17), Ghana (15), Nigeria (13) and Tanzania (13). This figure includes the 195 studies that passed the eligibility criteria of our search. In the Results section, we restrict the sample to 145 studies on topics that are of current interest in education

Distribution of Identified Education Studies (2014–2020) across Levels of Education and Classes of Outcomes. Access includes all outcomes related to students staying in school such as rates of enrollment, attendance and drop-out. Sum of values may exceed 100% since interventions can be implemented in more than one phase of education. Other outcomes include labour market outcomes and other life outcomes. This figure includes the 195 studies that passed the eligibility criteria of our search. In the Results section, we restrict the sample to 145 studies on topics that are of current interest in education

The majority of the interventions (72%) evaluated by the studies are administered through the school system, including interventions targeting teachers, school management and students, while only about 38% of the studies are targeted at the household level ( Figure 8 ). School-system interventions usually aim to increase students’ enrollment and retention and improve the quality of the learning environment. These interventions are (i) teacher- and teaching-targeted programs such as pedagogy, mother tongue instruction, education technology, teacher incentives and trainings and hiring practices; (ii) student-level interventions including health and nutrition programs (e.g., school feeding), incentives for students and individual inputs such as uniforms, solar lamps or bicycles; and (iii) school-level interventions such as school construction, school grants, public–private partnerships and other non-government school provision and community-based monitoring. The household-level interventions usually aim to reduce the economic and social barriers that keep households from sending their children to school—providing cash transfers, low-cost early child development care centres and learning and attendance information to parents.

Distribution of the Studies by Targeting the Level and Class of Intervention. Our sample includes household-targeted interventions (75 studies, 38%), teacher-targeted (81 studies, 42%), student-targeted (38 studies, 19%) and school-targeted (22 studies, 11%). The sum of the percentages is more than 100 since each intervention may target more than one group. This figure includes the 195 studies that passed the eligibility criteria of our search. In the Results section, we restrict the sample to 145 studies on topics that are of current interest in education.

A significant number of studies were implemented through government channels ( Table 2 ). In addition to the 19% of the studies that examined national policy reforms (such as free primary education), 46% of the 145 studies partnered with government agencies, most often the ministry of education for school construction, teacher trainings or incentive policies; the ministry of health for school feeding; or the relevant government agency for cash transfers. In total, 40% of the studies in our sample worked with non-government organisations such as the BRAC, the World Food Programme, the Aga Khan Foundation or the Twaweza. A smaller number (17 studies) worked with private partners such as for-profit schools, clinics or educational companies. About 15% of the studies did not employ any implementing partner aside from the research teams themselves. Some of these researcher-only studies evaluated smaller, less intensive interventions (e.g., a specific pedagogical technique). More than half of the interventions were evaluated using randomised controlled trials (58% of the studies); the next most common empirical method was difference-in-differences (25%), which was the most common method for evaluating national policies.

Studies According to the Implementing Partner. Private partners include for-profit schools, clinics and educational companies. Some studies have multiple implementing partners (e.g., public–private partnerships that are implemented by both government and private partners)

Source: Authors’ calculations based on underlying studies.

A limited number of studies offer cost information ( Table 3 ). Two out of five studies in our sample have no cost analysis at all. About one-quarter provide a full cost-effectiveness analysis, and the others provide limited information on costs, usually only the cost of one specific input, such as a stipend for the trainer or the value of a voucher provided to students. A handful of studies make claims such as an intervention being a ‘cost-effective measure’ or ‘scalable (low-cost)’ without providing any cost details.

Distribution of Cost Analyses within Studies

In terms of scale, 27 of our 145 studies evaluate national reform policies. For studies that are not national in scale and that report schools as treatment units, we find an average treatment group size of 96 schools (median: 66 schools). There are some larger studies: the 90th percentile includes 211 treated schools ( Carneiro et al. , 2020 ). Table 4 shows the average treatment group size for studies reporting other treatment units such as districts, communities or individuals.

Studies Reporting the Size of the Treatment Group. Other treatment units reported are households (two studies) and classrooms (one study)

Source: Author calculations based on underlying studies.

In addition to the 19% of the studies that evaluate national policies, almost half of the studies evaluate the impact of a single treatment. The other 35% have multiple treatment arms ( Table 5 ). Twenty-eight studies evaluate two treatment arms, seventeen studies test three treatment arms and six studies test four or more treatment arms. One outlier, Haushofer and Shapiro (2016) , randomised cash transfers to gender of the recipient, frequency of instalment and size of instalment, in addition to the spill-over group (nine treatment arms in total).

Studies Reporting the Number of Treatment Arms

We review the studies in four broad categories. Studies in the first group focus on what happens in the classroom and on policies around the person who manages the classroom—the teacher. These include studies on mother tongue instruction, structured pedagogy and policies around teacher pay and teacher professional development and accountability. Studies in the second group focus on a variety of inputs: school feeding, education technology, school construction and other inputs. Studies in the third group focus on financing: cash transfers, school grants and the elimination of school fees. Studies in the fourth and final group focus on three other topics: early child education, for which there has been little experimental or quasi-experimental evidence in Africa in the past, but for which that literature is growing; girls’ education; and public–private partnerships.

5.1. Teachers and pedagogy

5.1.1. mother tongue instruction.

Mother tongue instruction usually refers to teaching students basic skills in a language that they already know when they arrive at school. In many African countries, the historical norm has been to teach children in a colonial language (e.g., English, French or Portuguese), even though most children arrive at school with little or no ability in that language. 11 Most earlier syntheses have little or nothing to say about mother tongue instruction, but evidence has grown dramatically in recent years ( Appendix Table 3 ). Teaching children to read in a language they speak at home increased the rate at which children learn to read in Cameroon ( Laitin et al. , 2019 ), Kenya ( Piper et al. , 2016c ) and Uganda ( Brunette et al. , 2019 ; Kerwin and Thornton, 2020 ). 12

While impacts on initial reading ability in the mother tongue are promising, the objective of many parents is for their children to be literate in the colonial language, which may explain some of the resistance that parents have posed to mother tongue instruction reforms, as in Kenya ( Piper et al. , 2016c ). Several recent studies suggest that mother tongue instruction has positive impacts on children’s ability to subsequently learn a second language in Cameroon ( Laitin et al. , 2019 ), Ethiopia ( Seid, 2019 ) and South Africa ( Taylor and von Fintel, 2016 ). However, Piper et al. (2018c) find the effect is not as strong: students taught in mother tongue do not perform any better in English and perform worse in mathematics compared with students taught in a non-mother tongue.

Finally, there is some evidence of impact beyond literacy. In Ethiopia, where mother tongue instruction reforms took place in 1994, researchers have identified long-term impacts on educational attainment and civic engagement ( Ramachandran, 2017 ; Seid, 2017 ).

5.1.2. Structured pedagogy

Recent years have also shown growing rigorous evidence for approaches to improve literacy that incorporate a range of elements ( Appendix Table 4 ). Piper et al. (2014 , 2015) used a randomised controlled trial to evaluate a literacy program in Kenya that included teacher professional development, the provision of textbooks for students (including textbooks in Kiswahili), the provision of structured teacher guides for teachers and classroom observation and feedback to teachers, among other elements. The program led to sizeable literacy gains. Seeking to isolate the most important elements of the program, Piper et al. (2018b) find that structured teacher guides are the most cost-effective element of the program. The program was effective at boosting literacy for low-income students ( Piper et al. , 2015 ). The program was subsequently scaled up nationally and continued to demonstrate literacy gains ( Piper et al. , 2018a ). Similarly, a mathematics-focused version of the program provided teacher guides and teacher professional development training and yielded statistically significant improvements in test scores ( Piper et al. , 2016a ).

A combination of training principals and teachers as well as mentoring for teachers and new instructional materials was effective in boosting literacy in Uganda but not in Kenya, potentially because the language of testing was different from the language used in instruction in Kenya, despite national policy ( Lucas et al. , 2014 ). Brunette et al. (2019 ), already discussed in the section on mother tongue instruction, evaluated a program that not only encouraged mother tongue instruction in 12 different mother tongue languages but also provided teacher training, detailed teachers’ guides, textbooks for pupils and feedback from school leaders, resulting in sizeable literacy gains.

Beyond these literacy interventions, many interventions seek to improve the quality of teaching particular skills using a particular method, such as using graphics (e.g., Venn diagrams) in teaching to improve prose comprehension among secondary school students in Nigeria ( Uba et al. , 2017 ). These studies are of value mostly to those seeking to improve the teaching of these specific skills; as such, they are summarised in the appendix but not discussed at length here.

5.1.3. Teacher policies

Teacher remuneration and accountability Because teachers play such an instrumental role in students’ education, recent evidence on high rates of absenteeism and low levels of pedagogical and content knowledge suggests that better teacher policies may be useful to boost education outcomes ( Mbiti, 2016 ; Bold et al. , 2017 ). There is no general pattern in the level of teacher pay relative to comparable professions across Africa ( Evans et al. , 2020 ). There is evidence of a premium to civil service teachers relative to private school teachers ( Barton et al. , 2017 ). A new generation of evidence has arisen on bonus payments for teachers based on student performance. Earlier evidence on performance pay for teachers in Africa was limited and mixed: a randomised trial in Kenya showed that performance bonuses for students increased test scores on the exams directly linked to the incentives, but not on general exams ( Glewwe et al. , 2010 ).

A new generation of studies adds much more to our knowledge base ( Appendix Table 5 ). All these new pay-for-performance programs take place in primary schools. In one study in Tanzania, performance-based bonuses to teachers had positive impacts on student learning in only one of the two tests administered, but when those bonuses were coupled with school grants, students performed consistently better in both tests and across all subjects ( Mbiti et al. , 2019a ). Schools that received grants alone showed no performance gains. Teachers also support these programs in Tanzania, both in theory and in practice, reporting higher levels of satisfaction in schools that have performance pay ( Mbiti and Schipper, this issue ). In Rwanda, a novel experimental design separates the impact of performance pay on recruitment and on effort and finds favourable effects on both, with a significant net increase in student test scores ( Leaver et al. , 2019 ). A pay-for-performance program in Uganda had test score impacts only for the subset of students who attended schools that had books; although it did reduce dropout rates, which were not directly incentivized by the program ( Gilligan et al. , 2019 ). In Kenya, using contracts that are renewable based on performance to hire teachers also boosted student learning ( Duflo et al. , 2015a ); although an effort to scale up those contracts nationwide did not result in learning gains, potentially due to a combination of political opposition, reduced monitoring and delayed salaries ( Bold et al. , 2018 ).

New studies are exploring the nuances of how to implement these programs. In Tanzania, researchers tested two alternative incentive designs: one, a pay-for-percentile system where a teacher’s bonus is based on students’ ranks against other students with similar baseline scores; and the other program, where a teacher’s bonus is based on students achieving benchmark proficiency levels, which the authors argue is easier to implement and gives teachers clearer targets. Both designs boosted test scores, but the latter program had larger impacts at a lower cost ( Mbiti et al. , 2019b ).

Recent evaluations have also shown impacts from non-remunerative accountability interventions. In Côte d’Ivoire, providing twice-a-week text messages to either parents or teachers reduced dropout by between 2 and 2.5 percentage points (about 50% of the dropout rate in control schools). Texting both parents and teachers resulted in a much smaller, statistically insignificant impact. For low-attendance teachers, all three treatments had positive impacts ( Lichand and Wolf, 2020 ). In Tanzania, a nationwide program that simply published school performance on primary school leaving exams led to more students passing the exam among schools that initially performed poorly. However, in an example of how even a low-stakes intervention can also adversely affect behaviours, the program also increased dropouts ( Cilliers et al. , 2020c ). In Niger, a low-stakes, randomised intervention that complemented regular class inspections with phone calls to the village chief, the teacher and two randomly selected students to check on whether adult education classes were being held and how they were going led to improved student learning ( Aker and Ksoll, 2019 ).

Beyond improving performance and accountability, dozens of countries have designed incentive programs to recruit and retain teachers in less attractive teaching posts, and these have had little rigourous evaluation in the past ( Pugatch and Schroeder, 2014 ). Teacher turnover is high in Africa, especially in low-performing schools (Zeitlin, this issue), making teacher retention a policy priority. In Zambia, salary increases of 20% for rural teachers show at least some impact on an increased stock of teachers in beneficiary areas, albeit no impacts on student test scores ( Chelwa et al. , 2019 ). In the Gambia, a salary premium of 30%–40% significantly increased the share of trained teachers in remote areas ( Pugatch and Schroeder, 2014 ). 13 Ultimately, the impact of all of these teacher remuneration interventions—and their relevance to other settings—likely hinge both on existing teacher remuneration relative to other professions and on other aspects of the labour market.

Teacher professional development Another class of teacher intervention seeks to boost their content and pedagogical skills. Earlier reviews showed promising evidence on pedagogical interventions ( Conn, 2017 ), but that is not to say that most teacher professional development programs are effective. On the contrary, the vast majority of at-scale teacher professional development programs in Africa (and elsewhere) go unevaluated in any serious way and many among those do not have the characteristics common to programs that have been shown to be effective ( Popova et al. , 2018 ). Still, recent evidence bolsters the view that teacher professional development—particularly coaching programs—can be effective at boosting student learning outcomes. 14 Importantly, most multi-faceted literacy programs highlighted earlier include teacher training as one aspect of the intervention.

In Ghana, training teachers to target instruction to children’s learning levels by dividing the class by ability group for part of the day increased student learning ( Duflo et al. , 2020 ). In another study in Ghana, training teachers to do targeted instruction (including by dividing students by learning level rather than grade level) increased student scores on a combined Math and English test ( Beg et al. , 2020 ). Adding training for school principals and school inspectors had no additional impact. In South Africa, the government tested traditional, centralised training for teachers versus in-class coaching, with the impact of coaching more than double of that of the centralised training ( Cilliers et al. , 2019 ). In the subsequent cohort of students, only those with teachers who benefitted from coaching show learning gains, although even those are half the size of effects for the first cohort ( Cilliers et al. , 2020a ).

Another teacher training program, combined with partially scripted lesson plans and weekly text message support for teachers, improved teacher practice and children’s literacy ( Jukes et al. , 2017 ). Four trials invested in boosting teacher skills focus on pre-primary education. In Ghana, teacher training for preschool teachers led to small increases in children’s school readiness. When that training was coupled with parental awareness meetings, the outcomes were reversed, potentially because parents preferred traditional teaching over age-appropriate play-based learning in preschool ( Wolf et al. , 2019 ). Attanasio et al. (2019 ) evaluate a program—also in Ghana—that trained volunteer mothers and kindergarten teachers in stimulation and play curriculum; the intervention improved kindergarten children’s cognitive and socio-emotional skills. In Kenya, a combined package of teacher coaching and training, along with instructional materials, boosted learning in early child education centres ( Donfouet et al. , 2018 ). In Malawi, teacher training only boosted outcomes in informal preschools when combined with parent training ( Özler et al. , 2018 ). Finally, a teacher training program in Rwanda designed to complement a new entrepreneurship curriculum in secondary schools did not improve student test scores, although it did boost student participation in school business clubs ( Blimpo and Pugatch, 2020 ).

An alternative strategy is to train teaching assistants to assist teachers. In Ghana, schools were randomly assigned to hire teaching assistants from among the country’s youth employment program to either work with students who had fallen behind during school, work with students who had fallen behind after school or just work with half of the class, thereby reducing class size ( Duflo et al. , 2020 ). All three interventions improved student learning, although the first two had the largest impacts. Interestingly, relative to the Ghana-based, teacher-led targeted instruction intervention mentioned above, the remedially targeted teaching assistant interventions not only doubled the impact on student test scores but also doubled the cost, so cost-effectiveness was comparable.

5.2. Inputs

5.2.1. school feeding.

Just one earlier review highlights school feeding as a possibility for boosting both access and learning ( Snilstveit et al. , 2015 ), and most of the evidence behind that recommendation stems from other regions in the world. Recent evidence from Africa supports that finding ( Appendix Table 6 ). From a randomised evaluation of Ghana’s nationwide school feeding program, Aurino et al. (2019) find gains in test scores as a result of school feeding, with particularly large gains for girls and for children from the poorest households. In rural Senegal, Azomahou et al. (2019) use a randomised design to find gains in both enrollment and test scores from the provision of school meals, as do Diagne et al. (2014) in an earlier evaluation of the same program. Mensah and Nsabimana (2020) exploit staggered implementation of a school feeding program in Rwanda and find small (less than 0.03 standard deviations) but significant impacts on student test scores. Nikiema (2019) uses a difference-in-differences strategy to show that providing take-home rations in Burkina Faso increases school attendance for both boys and girls and increases enrollment for girls in particular. Parker et al. (2015) measure only health outcomes (haemoglobin and anaemia) in a cluster randomised trial of school feeding in rural Burundi and find no clear impacts.

In addition to evaluating the impact of providing school meals, studies are venturing into the details of the meals themselves. Hulett et al. (2014) examine the impact of introducing animal protein into school meals in Kenya with a randomised trial and find that the ‘meat group’ showed higher test score gains than other groups.

These results greatly strengthen earlier global evidence that school feeding is a promising strategy for boosting cognitive outcomes as well as access to school, particularly in food-insecure areas and especially for girls.

5.2.2. Education technology

A previous synthesis that highlighted the promise of education technology ( McEwan 2015 ) draws on evidence from 32 different treatments in five different countries, none of them on the African continent. Recent years have shown a rapid increase in evidence in this area with a mixed track record ( Appendix Table 7 ). 15 In some cases, technology complements existing inputs. In Kenya, researchers experimented with different technology complements (e-readers for students, tablets for teachers or tablets for instructional supervisors): none boosted literacy scores significantly relative to a non-technology-based intervention ( Piper et al. , 2016b ). In South Africa, a randomised trial comparing on-site teacher coaches with virtual teacher coaches (i.e., coaches who communicated with teachers by tablet) led to comparable outcomes in the first year, but over time, the gains from in-person coaches translated to other skills, whereas the gains from virtual coaches did not ( Kotze et al. , 2019 ; Cilliers et al. , 2020b ). A quasi-experimental evaluation of the impact of introducing interactive whiteboards—a complement to teachers—found higher test scores for urban students in Senegal ( Lehrer et al. , 2019 ). De Hoop et al. (2020 ) evaluate a program in Zambia where teachers receive tablets (and projectors) with lesson plans for teachers and interactive lessons for students. Complemented with weekly teacher professional development, the program shows gains for first graders in both reading and math.

In Angola, a randomised controlled trial of learning software together with the technological equipment needed to use the software had no consistent impact on primary school student learning, although it did boost teacher and student familiarity with technology ( Cardim et al. , 2019 ). An experimental evaluation that provided secondary school students in Malawi with access to Wikipedia—the students otherwise had little to no internet access—had small, positive impacts in two subjects but not in others ( Derksen et al. , 2020 ). Also in Zambia, a phone-based literacy game provided to a few hundred randomly selected first-grade students boosted their spelling ability relative to a control group ( Jere-Folotiya et al. , 2014 ). In Kenyan primary schools, interactive literacy software coupled with a library of digital books and stories boosted reading scores ( Lysenko et al. , 2019 ).

In other cases, technology seeks to substitute for other inputs. Providing e-readers to secondary school students in urban Nigeria only increased learning if they included curricular content and were distributed in areas with limited textbook access, essentially substituting e-readers for traditional textbooks ( Habyarimana and Sabarwal, 2018 ). In Ghana, broadcasting live instruction—where students can interact with the instructors—from teachers in the capital to students in rural areas improved literacy and numeracy scores, essentially substituting for teacher ability ( Johnston and Ksoll, 2017 ). Alternatively, technology can fill an input gap in terms of role models: Riley (2019) finds that showing secondary students in Uganda a film featuring a low-income adolescent Ugandan girl succeeding at chess improved student test scores and closed the gender gap in enrollment in subsequent years.

While the findings are certainly not universally positive, they suggest that technology in education can effectively complement or substitute for existing inputs when the infrastructure is in place to support it. This pattern is consistent with earlier evidence ( Bulman and Fairlie, 2016 ). However, most of the technologies evaluated in the studies are used in school settings, with more stable access to electricity and internet connectivity (with the exception of e-readers that students can take home). There is still limited evidence for technology that allows for distance learning where access to school is not available.

5.2.3. School construction

School construction rarely features in reviews of the best investments, but when there are few schools, construction is essential to achieve the last mile (or last 20 miles) of enrollment. Recent studies bolster this ( Appendix Table 8 ). In Burkina Faso, a program to construct schools improved enrollment, attendance and student learning both 7 and 10 years after the program ( Ingwersen et al. , 2019 ; Kazianga et al. , 2019 ). 16 A similar program in Niger also boosted enrollment and learning ( Bagby et al. , 2016 ). These programs of course will be most effective when there are few schools: a school construction program in Benin boosted enrollment principally in rural areas ( Deschênes and Hotte, 2019 ). Furthermore, the Burkina Faso program led young women to put off marriage and childbearing ( Ingwersen et al. , 2019 ) and the Benin program reduced tolerance of domestic violence ( Deschênes and Hotte, 2019 ). Ashraf et al. (2020b) find that school construction benefitted girls’ education in Zambia only among ethnic groups with a bride price tradition. Ultimately, construction is likely a necessary condition for other interventions to work when there are insufficient schools.

5.2.4. Other inputs

Fewer recent studies evaluate the impact of providing simple, non-technological in-kind inputs for schooling (although a previous generation of evaluations yielded several of those), but recent studies still provide some insight into this area ( Appendix Table 9 ). Two studies in Kenya provided free school uniforms: one provided them to girls in upper primary grades and found reductions in school dropout, pregnancy and marriage; another provided them to children in lower primary grades and found significant reductions in absenteeism in early years, but no evidence of enduring effects several years later ( Duflo et al. , 2015b ; Evans and Ngatia, 2020 )

Previous studies examining the simple provision of additional textbooks to schools found either no impacts or selective impacts in Kenya and Sierra Leone ( Glewwe et al. , 2009 ; Sabarwal et al. , 2014 ), but a new randomised trial providing textbooks together with a combination of financial and non-financial incentives to simply take the books home increased both language scores and the likelihood of students taking the end-of-year exam in the Democratic Republic of the Congo ( Falisse et al. , 2019 ).

In Kenya, randomly selected seventh-grade students who lived in rural areas off the electrical grid received solar-powered lamps. In some classes, a higher proportion of students received solar lamps and the authors use that variation to estimate the externalities on non-recipient students. The program found significant gains in math scores for students who received lamps and smaller additional gains for students who did not receive lamps in classrooms where many students did ( Hassan and Lucchino, 2016 )

5.3. Financing

5.3.1. cash transfers.

Cash transfers are a richly studied area of analysis, with the first generation of evidence coming out of Latin America and the Caribbean ( Fiszbein et al. , 2009 ). Early evidence from Africa showed promising results in that setting as well ( Davis et al. , 2016 ). The most recent evidence shows impacts not only of giving transfers but also of testing a variety of designs ( Appendix Table 10 ). In terms of simple impacts, a randomised trial of unconditional transfers in Malawi showed an increase in school enrollment and reduced dropout rates ( Kilburn et al. , 2017 ). In Kenya, unconditional transfers did not translate to improved educational outcomes after 9 months ( Haushofer and Shapiro, 2016 ). In Lesotho, unconditional child grants boosted primary enrollment but not completion or the transition to secondary ( Pellerano et al. , 2014 ). Conditional cash transfers in Tanzania boosted primary school completion ( Evans et al. , 2014 ). Baird et al. (2016a) compare conditional cash transfers for already enrolled and unenrolled adolescent girls in Malawi: they find enrollment gains for both groups and mixed effects on test scores. Eyal and Woodard (2014) find that expanding a child support grant in South Africa increased educational enrollment in South Africa but that higher enrollment does not translate into higher levels of attained education. An unconditional cash transfer program in Rwanda increased educational investments (more children had school uniforms) but did not affect school attendance ( Sabates et al. , 2019 ).

Other evaluations inform the design of cash transfer programs. De Walque and Valente (2019) compare cash transfers directly to children and to parents as well as simply providing information (with no cash) about their children’s attendance to parents. Providing attendance information delivered 75% of the gains of cash in terms of children’s attendance. Transfers to children and to parents performed comparably. Akresh et al. (2016) compare a variety of transfer designs and find positive impacts on children’s education outcomes across designs in Burkina Faso, with larger impacts on school attendance for older children from conditional transfers relative to unconditional transfers. Benhassine et al. (2015) found that unconditional transfers labelled as education support in Morocco increased both school participation and parent views of the value of education investments; adding explicit conditions and targeting a particular parent (mothers versus fathers) had no additional impact. In Malawi, conditional cash transfers had larger impacts on school attainment, but unconditional cash transfers had larger gains on other outcomes ( Baird et al. , 2019 ).

On the whole, these findings are consistent with earlier work that suggests that cash transfers—especially, but not limited to, conditional transfers—can be an effective way to boost school enrollment but may not by themselves translate into broader educational gains. We also observe significant variation in cash transfer performance. 17 Evaluations on this topic, among others, signal a maturing literature in testing alternative designs.

5.3.2. School grants

Grants to schools can be an effective way to distribute resources, and there is evidence from other regions of the world that they can boost enrollment: in Haiti, grants to schools conditional on not charging fees to students boosted enrollment and reduced grade repetition ( Adelman et al. , 2017 ). Recent evidence in Africa confirms that grants are not a silver bullet but can yield benefits, mostly when complemented with other programs ( Appendix Table 11 ). In Senegal, school grants led to improved test scores for younger students, particularly in schools that used the grants for training teachers and school administrators ( Carneiro et al. , 2020 ). Grants to school committees in Niger increased enrollment for young children but did not affect learning ( Beasley and Huillery, 2017 ).

School grants alone had no impact on student learning in Tanzania; although when they were coupled with teacher incentives, outcomes improved ( Mbiti et al. , 2019a ). School grants alone in the Gambia had no impact on student attendance or on learning outcomes, but in concert with management training, the program did boost attendance and—in some communities—even learning ( Blimpo et al. , 2015 ). Grants alone do not consistently solve access or learning problems, but when attached to conditions or complementary programs that relax other constraints, they can boost both access and learning.

5.3.3. Eliminating school fees

An obvious constraint to education is the cost, including both formal school fees and myriad other fees that schools charge ( Williams et al. , 2015 ). An array of recent papers seeks to quantify the impact of reducing those costs, mostly at the primary level ( Appendix Table 12 ). İşcan et al. (2015) use regression analysis to show that the introduction of school fees reduced enrollment and subsequent completion of primary school across seven African countries. Moussa and Omoeva (2020) use a fuzzy regression discontinuity design to examine the impact of universal primary education policies in Ethiopia, Malawi and Uganda: they find an increase in educational attainment, as well as a decrease in adolescent pregnancy and marriage. They do not observe impacts on labour force participation or employment. In Kenya, free primary education—rolled out in 2003—increased educational attainment as well as subsequent employment and income ( Ajayi and Ross, 2020 ). There is some evidence that the expansion of access led to a fall in quality ( Atuhurra, 2016 ). Free basic education increased girls’ attainment and reduced adolescent fertility and marriage in Ghana and Uganda ( Boahen and Yamauchi, 2018 ; Masuda and Yamauchi, 2018 ). The elimination of primary school fees in Ethiopia led to more schooling for men and women, along with reduced fertility ( Chicoine, 2019 , 2020 ). In Tanzania, free primary education increased access and had positive returns across sectors, even in the agricultural sector ( Delesalle, 2019 ; Valente, 2019 ). Lesotho also saw dramatic gains in access with the elimination of fees ( Moshoeshoe et al. , 2019 ). Informal fees in public primary schools continue to keep students—especially poor, rural students—away from school ( Sakaue, 2018 ).

As countries expand secondary education, more studies examine impacts at that level. In Uganda, free secondary education significantly but not completely reduced expenditures ( Omoeva and Gale, 2016 ), consistent with earlier work showing that school fees are not the only out-of-pocket expense. In the Gambia, eliminating secondary school fees for girls increased the number of girls taking the high school exit exam by more than 50%. Test scores also rose, despite the increase in access coming mostly from poorer areas ( Blimpo et al. , 2019b ). An earlier evaluation found increased female enrollment for both secondary and primary schools ( Gajigo, 2016 ). Similarly, a study in Kenya found that the abolition of tuition in public secondary schools increased access, delayed childbirth and did not reduce test scores ( Brudevold-Newman, 2019 ). In Uganda, eliminating secondary school fees via public funds to private schools increased the number of students taking the exit exam by 16%, with no fall in test scores ( Masuda and Yamauchi, 2018 ). Finally, a randomised controlled trial of scholarships for students in Ghana who had already passed the entrance exam but lacked financing increased secondary and tertiary attainment and—10 years later—reduced fertility and improved labour market outcomes ( Duflo et al. , 2019 ).

5.4. Other topics

5.4.1. early child education.

Earlier syntheses have little to say about early child education in Africa, largely because of a paucity of studies. Martinez et al. (2017) highlight that most evidence from low- and middle-income countries stems from Latin America and do not identify a single paper that predates 2015 in Africa. Since then, several studies have come out, most of which examine the impact of access to early child education ( Appendix Table 13 ). Martinez et al. (2017) use a randomised controlled trial to estimate the impact of community-based preschools in Mozambique and find that enroled children are much more likely to be in primary school at the right age and that their test scores are higher, with larger effects for children from poorer households. Bietenbeck et al. (2019) take advantage of the expansion of pre-primary education in Kenya and Tanzania to compare siblings with access with siblings without; they find that children with access to preschool education are more likely to be in primary school, more likely to have advanced, and have moderately higher scores on cognitive tests (0.10 standard deviations). Aunio et al. (2019) —with a simple cross-sectional regression approach and the selection challenges that entails—find a significant, positive correlation between kindergarten attendance and later numeracy skill in South Africa, even when controlling for other current skills (language and executive function). Krafft (2015) compares siblings with and without access to early child education in Egypt and finds that access translates to an additional year of total schooling. Woldehanna and Araya (2017) use an instrumental variables approach with Young Lives data in Ethiopia and find that preschool attendees in urban areas are 25% more likely to have completed secondary education than non-attendees. Finally, Blimpo et al. (2019a) evaluate random assignment of community-based early child development centres in the Gambia and find that children from less-disadvantaged families do worse, consistent with some evidence from high-income countries ( Baker et al. , 2019 ).

Five studies examine the quality of early child education services. Blimpo et al. (2019a) find that children who attended preschools that were randomly assigned to receive intensive teacher training had much higher language skills than children who attended other preschools. Morabito et al. (2018) evaluate children randomly assigned to high-quality versus low-quality preschools: they find no average effect on test scores, although there is evidence that high-quality preschool has a positive impact for children with poorly educated fathers (compensating for inequality) and a negative impact for children with poorly educated mothers (reinforcing inequality). Four other interventions trained early child education providers—in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi—and were discussed in Section 5.1 .

Finally, at least one study examines a home-based program to strengthen children’s emergent literacy skills before they even begin school. In Kenya, randomly selected parents of young children received either children’s storybooks or storybooks with training on how to read the storybooks with children ( Knauer et al. , 2020 ). Children whose parents received both books and training demonstrated increased vocabulary.

This new generation of early child education evidence suggests that there is value in these investments and capacity of governments and others to provide them on the African continent.

5.4.2. Education for girls

Education for girls has long been cited as a potential high-value investment, by both researchers and policy makers ( Evans et al. , 2020 ). Discussing girls’ education as a separate category can be problematic, since earlier sections covered studies that reported impacts on girls. For example, the elimination of school fees for secondary school has shown consistent impacts in reducing adolescent marriage and fertility, and school construction in several countries has focused on ensuring that girls’ needs are met and have improved outcomes for girls. In this section, we discuss work on girls’ education that does not fit naturally into our other categories. A recent synthesis, not restricted to Africa but drawing heavily on research from the continent, suggests that the most effective investments to improve girls’ educational outcomes may be a mix of targeted and non-targeted investments ( Evans and Yuan, 2019 ). Recent work in Africa backs that up: Duflo et al. (2020) , in their evaluation of targeted instruction interventions in Ghana, find larger impacts for girls despite the fact that girls are not specifically targeted by the intervention.

Among targeted interventions not discussed earlier, providing negotiation training to secondary school girls in Zambia—including teaching them to advocate for their own education—improved educational outcomes over the subsequent several years ( Ashraf et al. , 2020a ). Providing sanitary pads to schoolgirls in Kenya reduced absenteeism significantly ( Benshaul-Tolonen et al. , 2019 ). A program that provided bicycles to schoolgirls in Zambia reduced girls’ commute time and their absenteeism from school, with modest impacts on mathematics learning ( Fiala et al. , 2020 ). Unlike a similar program in India, the program had no impact on dropout rates or grade advancement ( Muralidharan and Prakash, 2017 ).

Several recent studies look beyond educational outcomes to examine the impact of school-based programs to improve other outcomes for girls ( Appendix Table 14 ). Bandiera et al. (2020) find—using a randomised controlled trial in Uganda—that simultaneously providing vocational training as well as information about reproductive health to adolescent girls increased self-employment and reduced adolescent pregnancy and sexual violence 4 years later. A similar program in Tanzania had no impacts ( Buehren et al. , 2017 ). In Sierra Leone, a program provided similar services in the context of girls-only after-school clubs but was interrupted by the 2014 Ebola outbreak. Girls in participating communities were protected from the significant school dropout and adolescent pregnancy effects of the outbreak ( Bandiera et al. , 2019 ). A mentoring program intended to develop social and emotional life skills in Liberia increased primary school completion and the transition to secondary school ( Koroknay-Palicz and Montalvao, 2019 ). Another girls-only safe space program—this one in Ethiopia—used longitudinal analysis and found gains in both literacy and the likelihood of accessing health services ( Medhin and Erulkar, 2017 ). The findings demonstrate significant variation in impacts across settings.

5.4.3. Private schools and other non-government school provision

Private schools are an important part of the education landscape in Sub-Saharan Africa. On average across countries, 14% of primary school students and 19% of secondary school students were enroled in secondary schools as of 2014, and that number had grown since the year 2000 ( Baum et al. , 2018 ). Private schools are perceived by many parents to be of higher quality: in Kenya, even poor families were willing to undergo financial hardship to pay for so-called low-cost private schools ( Zuilkowski et al. , 2018 ). Distinguishing the impact of private schools on student learning is generally difficult because of student selection effects: often, students with better off parents or parents more invested in education may be more likely to attend private schools. Beyond purely private schools, many African governments are entering into agreements with private school chains where they receive public resources to educate students at no charge. These public–private partnerships often seek to leverage the physical and human capital of private schools to increase access and learning. The past several years have seen some new work on private schools and public–private partnerships in Sub-Saharan Africa ( Appendix Table 15 ). Most previous work on private schools has taken place in other regions, and to our knowledge, this topic is not covered in previous reviews focused on Africa.

Recent studies seek to compare student outcomes in private and public schools in African countries. Wamalwa and Burns (2018) compare public school versus private school attending siblings within the same household (i.e., household fixed effects) in Kenya and identify literacy and numeracy gains in attending private schools. Despite efforts to gauge the potential extent of bias, the challenge remains of unobserved child characteristics determining whether a child is sent to private or public school. Also in Kenya, Zuilkowski et al. (2020) compare student scores over two academic years in low-cost private schools and government schools in Nairobi and find that, in general, the low-cost private schools do not produce better student outcomes over time. However, private schools yielded more learning gains when they received an instructional improvement intervention than did public schools. Lipcan et al. (2018) compare test scores, costs and management practices across public and private schools in Lagos, Nigeria, and find that one international chain of private schools has higher student test scores relative to other private schools and public schools in literacy and relative to public schools only in mathematics. Adjusting for a set of observed student characteristics reduces the gains by a small amount. The authors make no claim to causality, as unobserved characteristics of students may still play a role in the results. A third study does not find any differences in management practices between public and private schools in Uganda; although it does find a significant association between the quality of management and student performance overall ( Crawfurd, 2017 ).

Two randomised controlled trials examine the impact of public–private partnerships, one for primary schools in Liberia and another for secondary schools in Uganda. In Liberia, the management of 93 randomly selected schools was delegated to one of eight different private organisations ( Romero et al. , 2020 ). Government teachers taught in both publicly and privately managed schools, but privately managed schools received more funding, and some raised additional funding independently. Ultimately, the privately managed schools achieved significantly higher test scores but at a significantly higher cost per student. In general, management of teachers was better at privately managed schools, but one chain kicked out students when their enrollment cap was reached and transferred less effective teachers to non-evaluated schools. Three years after implementation, the learning gains in privately managed schools failed to compound over time ( Romero and Sandefur, 2019 ). Ultimately, private management of public schools proved to be a mixed bag.

In Uganda, a program randomised which private secondary schools participated in the public–private partnership and so documented the impact on private school performance ( Barrera-Osorio et al. , 2020 ). Participation in the partnerships boosted both enrollment and student performance. There is evidence of both an increase in inputs at the partnership schools and changes in student composition, favouring students with more educational advantage. The evaluation did not measure the impact relative to public schools.

Non-profit school providers are another option, especially in the context of extreme poverty and poor state provision of schooling. In Guinea-Bissau, a non-profit organisation randomly selected villages to provide 4-year primary schools to substitute for existing government education ( Fazzio et al. 2020 ). The schools had a custom-made structured pedagogy program and frequent monitoring and assessment of teachers and students. Students in intervention schools performed dramatically better on early grade reading and math tests.

The private school and other non-government school evaluation literature is still nascent in Africa. While there is no compelling evidence that private schools or private management of schools deliver more learning than public schools, the revealed preference of many parents and demonstrated improvement in private schools suggests merit in continuing to examine the issue.

6.1. What we learn

The past several years of education and economics research in Africa demonstrate that there is a range of promising ways to continue to expand access to schools and to improve their quality. Earlier reviews of the evidence had little examination of mother tongue instruction programs and limited coverage of structured pedagogy programs, both of which show sizeable impacts on learning. Likewise, a range of teacher policies shows promising results, including both teacher pay-for-performance programs at the primary level and non-remunerative interventions, such as teacher coaching and training teaching assistants. School feeding programs appear to be beneficial for both access and learning outcomes.

As evidence on inputs—including education technology inputs—grows on the continent, its track record is decidedly mixed. Technology proves effective in some cases and not in others, paralleling the education technology findings in high-income countries and the fact that technology is a means to an end rather than an end in itself ( Bulman and Fairlie, 2016 ). Public–private partnerships likewise are proving no panacea to education systems in Africa.

The past few years have provided several long-term studies on the elimination of primary school fees, showing positive results on later life outcomes. Likewise, a new generation of studies on reducing fees for secondary school shows gains in access, increased employment and reduced early fertility. Of course, the first step of constructing schools in places where there are no schools is likely an essential condition for further educational investments.

6.2. What we still need to learn

The weaknesses of this evidence base are the same weaknesses of economics of education research throughout low- and middle-income countries. The first is the duration of impacts. The vast majority of interventions measure outcomes within 12 months of the onset of the intervention, with little information on the longer run time path of impacts ( McEwan, 2015 ). There are recent exceptions to that in the region, with studies studying impacts of experimental interventions 2 years after implementation ( Cilliers et al. , 2020a ), 3 years after implementation ( Bagby et al. , 2016 ), 7 years after implementation ( Evans and Ngatia, 2020 ) and even 10 years after implementation ( Baird et al. , 2016b ; Ingwersen et al. , 2019 ). But most interventions still lack any long-term follow-up. Quasi-experimental studies that examine policy changes are showing much longer-term impacts, as in several of the fee elimination studies.

The second is scale. Many evaluations of interventions are at relatively small scale. Outside of the interventions evaluating national policies, the median number of treated schools is just 66 ( Table 4 ), often implemented under the careful eye of a cautious researcher. Obviously, going to scale entails a host of challenges—both political and implementation—and sometimes those challenges ultimately undermine whatever worked well in the original evaluation ( Bold et al. , 2018 ). Design elements in pilots can facilitate moving to scale by, for example, testing a variety of elements to increase confidence in the optimal policy design, drawing on government systems when possible and providing cost analysis ( Gove et al. , 2017 ).

Interventions where scale requires a large increase in financial resources but not a proportional increase in human resources (e.g., cash transfers or fee elimination) present a distinct set of challenges than those where scale requires a corresponding increase in human resources (a structured pedagogy program, for example). In some ways, the financial resources are easier to come by at large scale than the human resources, especially in education systems that historically have had difficulty recruiting and training qualified workers.

A third challenge is cost-effectiveness. A natural response to the array of evidence we have presented would be to point out that the benefit is just half of the investment decision. Unfortunately, less than 30% of the studies report cost-effectiveness ( Table 3 ), which may be an increase from a few years ago ( McEwan, 2015 ). 18 Programs that provide consistent benefits in boosting access—including fee elimination, school construction and school meals—also tend to have high fixed or recurrent costs (or both). Cost-effectiveness analysis is essential for better policy decisions, and hopefully the new generation of studies will do more of that.

6.3. Applying research findings to policy

These findings can help policymakers to update their existing beliefs as to the best starting points for discussions about education policy. Every place and time is different, and so synthesising effective results is not intended to promote wholesale adoption of one program to another context. Achieving high-quality education in Africa will require a host of interventions at each education level—early child education, primary education, secondary education, etc. As a result, policymakers and the researchers who advise them can learn from successful interventions in two key ways. First, most simply, successful interventions in one context provide a starting point for discussions in another context ( World Bank, 2018a ). 19 Would that work here? Why or why not? Second, we can examine the principles behind the success of interventions rather than focusing on specific point estimates ( Muralidharan, 2017 ). Specifically, we can ask what the theory behind the program is: whether the required conditions in a new context hold for that theory to apply; whether the same behaviour change would be expected in the new context, based on existing evidence; and whether the program could be well implemented ( Bates and Glennerster, 2017 ). In some cases, a different program design may be more effective at achieving the same change in teacher or student behaviour in a new country because of different contextual factors. Certain classes of programs that have been successful across several contexts—such as structured pedagogy programs, school feeding programs, school fee elimination programs or mother tongue instruction programs—may provide starting points for policy discussions in other areas.

The education impact evaluation evidence in Africa is shifting from simple tests of what works and what does not to what implementation design is the most effective in a given context. As Duflo (2017) writes, ‘Our models give us very little theoretical guidance on what (and how) details will matter.’ But the growing array of evidence can guide us in the path forward.

The authors are grateful for contributions from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in support of this work.

These initial numbers are regional aggregates provided in the World Bank’s World Development Indicators. One challenge in tracking and reporting these statistics is the availability of data: in 2010, only about two-thirds of the countries in the region reported primary completion rates. Figures 1 and 2 provide a more detailed distribution.

The number of impact evaluations on the topic of education in development settings rose more in absolute numbers than in any other sector except health, both from 2000 to 2009 and from 2010 to 2015 ( Sabet and Brown, 2018 ).

Section 2 provides evidence for these claims.

Most of our studies are from Sub-Saharan Africa, but a handful is from northern African countries.

Two earlier examples include Kremer and Miguel (2007) and Baird et al. , (2011) .

Lacking access to time travel technology, Evans and Popova (2016b) actually review an earlier version of the work of Conn (2014) but the results of Conn’s analysis do not change across the two versions.

We use the median rate across countries because education policy decisions are made at the country level. The World Development Indicators also provide a regional aggregate number with population weighting, which yields slightly higher completion rates (68% for primary and 43% for lower secondary).

An assessment of student test scores in Nigeria reports that only 17% of the students meet the minimum literacy competency benchmark and 31% meet the numeracy benchmark. Students from poor households, in rural areas and in government-owned schools are particularly worse off ( Adeniran et al. , 2020 ).

Snilstveit et al. (2016) provide a manageable summary of Snilstveit et al. (2015) , which comes in at more than 850 pages.

Evans and Popova (2016b) provide a detailed description of the advantages and disadvantages of different review methodologies.

Mother tongue instruction can also be used to refer to teaching children their mother tongue (e.g., formalising knowledge of a language spoken from childhood). That is not how we use the term here.

Brunette et al. (2019) examined interventions in 12 different mother tongues and found positive, significant impacts for three quarters of them.

The Gambian program also had no clear impact on student test scores ( Pugatch and Schroeder, 2018 ).

Many teacher professional development interventions report impacts on participant knowledge and even practice—as do McDermott and Allen (2015) in Sierra Leone—but it cannot be assumed that teachers will be able to translate that knowledge into increased student learning.

Some studies provide proof of concept of technological interventions in very small samples. These studies should not inform large-scale policies yet, but they can point to promising directions for future testing. In a very small pilot study in Kenya, primary school teachers and students had access to an ‘interactive, multimedia literacy software’ for 90 minutes per week, resulting in gains in end-of-year subject exams ( Abrami et al. , 2016 ). Another small pilot provided electronic career guidance for secondary school students in Nigeria, with promising results ( John et al. , 2016 ).

That program also seems to have increased children’s participation in household chores ( de Hoop and Rosati, 2014 ).

Evans and Yuan (2019) find cash transfers among both the most and the least effective interventions to increase girls’ access to schooling worldwide.

Even if one had those data, comparing costs across settings entails many of the same challenges that comparing effect sizes entails ( Evans and Popova, 2016a ).

Most immediately, evaluations can inform policy decisions in the same context, as demonstrated by the multifaceted use of evaluations by the Department of Basic Education in South Africa ( Pophiwa et al. , 2020 ). This is less relevant to the present synthesis of evidence from many countries.

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• 17 May 2023

Changes in education levels across generations in Africa are linked to religion

• Melina R. Platas 0

Melina R. Platas is in the Social Science Division, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, PO Box 129188, United Arab Emirates.

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Free basic education is considered a universal human right (see go.nature.com/3refkbs ), and often seen as essential to economic growth and human well-being. Nevertheless, there are large inequalities in levels of educational attainment both across and within countries (see go.nature.com/3gujyhi ). Although less-well documented, there are also inequalities in intergenerational educational mobility — whether a child completes more or less education than did their parents. Writing in Nature , Alesina et al. 1 document patterns of inequality in intergenerational educational mobility, in terms of whether children complete primary school, across religious groups in Africa. This region has the highest rates of children out of school, and is also the only region in which this number is growing in absolute terms (see go.nature.com/3kqzgom ).

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Nature 618 , 31-32 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-01008-x

Alesina, A., Hohmann, S., Michalopoulos, S. & Papaioannou, E. Nature 618 , 134–143 (2023).

Article   Google Scholar  

Platas, M. R. The Religious Roots of Inequality in Africa . PhD thesis, Stanford Univ. (2016).

Ramirez, F. O. & Boli, J. Sociol. Educ. 60 , 2–17 (1987).

Nyamnjoh, F. B. J . Asian African Stud. 47 , 129–154 (2012).

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Africa is the world’s youngest continent – education is key to unlocking its potential

With 40% of all Africans aged under 15, smarter funding for schools can help young Africans fuel a colossal powerhouse

T he African Union (AU) is marking 2024 as its first Year of Education. This could not have come at a better time. Commitment to education has marked the continent’s progress since the 1960s era of independence. Now more than ever, this resolve must transform Africa into the world’s powerhouse for the 21st century.

In 60 years Africa has made considerable progress in education, with more children finishing school. Primary school completion rates across the region between 2000 and 2022 rose from 52% to 67% . High school dropout rates slowed too, with 50% of pupils completing lower secondary, up from 35%, and 33% in upper secondary education, up from 23%, while the number of tertiary education students has risen from fewer than 800,000 in 1970 to above 17 million today. More girls are in school than ever before.

But as we usher in this year of education, we must acknowledge that any hard-won gains fall short of preparing for tomorrow’s opportunities and risks.

After the Covid pandemic, millions of children, adolescents and youth were out of school across sub-Saharan Africa. Only one in five children achieve the minimum proficiency level in reading by the end of primary education. Girls are particularly disadvantaged in the only region in the world not to have achieved gender parity in enrolment at any level in the education system, with one in three girls married before they turn 18 . This trend, while troubling, is not irreversible.

To build the Africa we want, we must finance quality education that equips all our children with the knowledge and skills to succeed in the labour market of tomorrow, and to secure a peaceful, prosperous and stable future.

National budgets remain the principal source of education funding, but these often struggle to cover essentials such as teacher training, salaries, books and administrative costs.

Since 2020, education budgets in nearly half of low-income countries diminished by an average of 14% . At the same time, more than 20%of total spending went to servicing debt . While the pandemic affected education budgets, before the crisis only about 20% of governments on the continent met international benchmarks for spending between 2017 and 2019.

While trimming education spending might relieve budgets in the short term, it is depriving economies of long-term prosperity.

To support domestic financing of education and prevent this backsliding, donors, multilateral institutions and the private sector can step up, pursuing all possible means – including debt relief – to help finance the quality education that African children need. For African governments, spending smarter is also imperative.

Without it, our continent’s development will stagnate when it should be racing ahead, powered by its youth, natural resources and green energy. Africa is the world’s youngest and fastest-growing continent. It currently accounts for 14% of the world’s working-age population. That is set to rise to 42% by the end of the century .

Today, 40% of all Africans are under 15 . Another 100 million children will be born here by 2050 .With education, young Africans can fuel a colossal powerhouse. Yet, of the 1 million Africans entering the labour market every month, fewer than 25% find a job in the formal economy.

Since the Global Education Summit in 2021, 21 African heads of state have signed the Declaration on Education Financing that demands exemplary levels of investment. The AU year of education can re-energise members in committing to adequate domestic financing.

Multilateralism is essential to finance transformative education, which is why we support multi-stakeholder collaborations such as the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). Over 20 years, GPE has contributed $6bn (£4.8bn) to support education funding in sub-Saharan Africa.

Today, African influence is asserting itself globally – the AU has a seat at the G20. This influence can expand with its growing young population if matched with a quality education that unlocks the potential of every girl and boy.

Nelson Mandela recognised the foundational importance of learning when he said: “It is not beyond our power to create a world in which all children have access to a good education. Those who do not believe this have small imaginations.”

Nana Akufo-Addo is the president of Ghana and Jakaya Kikwete is the former president of Tanzania and chair of the board of directors of the Global Partnership for Education .

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Education in Africa

Of all regions, sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rates of education exclusion. Over one-fifth of children between the ages of about 6 and 11 are out of school, followed by one-third of youth between the ages of about 12 and 14. According to UIS data, almost 60% of youth between the ages of about 15 and 17 are not in school. 

Without urgent action, the situation will likely get worse as the region faces a rising demand for education due to a still-growing school-age population.

Education in Africa is major priority for UNESCO and the UIS. In response, the UIS develops indicators to help governments, donors and UN partners better address the challenges. For example, the UIS tracks the extent to which schools lack basic amenities, such as access to electricity and potable water, while monitoring classroom conditions – from the availability of textbooks to average class sizes and the prevalence of multi-grade classrooms. With seven out of ten countries facing an acute shortage of teachers , the Institute also produces a range of data on their training, recruitment and working conditions.  

Girls’ education is a major priority. Across the region, 9 million girls between the ages of about 6 and 11 will never go to school at all, compared to 6 million boys, according to UIS data. Their disadvantage starts early: 23% of girls are out of primary school compared to 19% of boys. By the time they become adolescents, the exclusion rate for girls is 36% compared to 32% for boys.

To help policymakers bridge this gender gap , the UIS disaggregates all indicators by sex to the extent possible, while producing gender parity indices and developing specific indicators related to access to separate toilets for girls and boys and the presence of female teachers, who can serve as role models and encourage girls to continue their education.

These are just some of the ways in which the UIS is helping governments, donors and civil society groups strive towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 ( SDG 4 ) and reach the most marginalised children and youth.  

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At the dawn of independence, incoming African leaders were quick to prioritize education on their development agendas. Attaining universal primary education, they maintained, would help postindependence Africa lift itself out of abject poverty.

As governments began to build schools and post teachers even to the farthest corners of the continent, with help from religious organizations and other partners, children began to fill the classrooms and basic education was under way.

Africa’s current primary school enrolment rate is above 80% on average, with the continent recording some of the biggest increases in elementary school enrolment globally in the last few decades, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which is tasked with coordinating international cooperation in education, science, culture and communication. More children in Africa are going to school than ever before.

Yet despite the successes in primary school enrolment, inequalities and inefficiencies remain in this critical sector.

According to the African Union (AU), the recent expansion in enrolments “masks huge disparities and system dysfunctionalities and inefficiencies” in education subsectors such as preprimary, technical, vocational and informal education, which are severely underdeveloped.

It is widely accepted that most of Africa’s education and training programs suffer from low-quality teaching and learning, as well as inequalities and exclusion at all levels. Even with a substantial increase in the number of children with access to basic education, a large number still remain out of school.

A newly released report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Income Inequality Trends in sub-Saharan Africa: Divergence, Determinants and Consequences, identifies the unequal distribution of essential facilities, such as schools, as one the drivers of wide income disparities.

Ayodele Odusola, the lead editor of the report and UNDP’s chief economist, makes the following point: “Quality education is key to social mobility and can thus help reduce poverty, although it may not necessarily reduce [income] inequality.”

To address education inequality, he says, governments must invest heavily in child and youth development through appropriate education and health policies and programmes.

Higher-quality education, he says, improves the distribution of skilled workers, and state authorities can use this increased supply to build a fairer society in which all people, rich or poor, have equal opportunities. As it is now, only the elites benefit from quality education.

“Wealthy leaders in Africa send their children to study in the best universities abroad, such as Harvard. After studies, they come back to rule their countries, while those from poor families who went to public schools would be lucky to get a job even in the public sector,” notes Mr. Odusola.

Another challenge facing policy makers and pedagogues is low secondary and tertiary enrolment. Angela Lusigi, one of the authors of the UNDP report, says that while Africa has made significant advances in closing the gap in primary-level enrolments, both secondary and tertiary enrolments lag behind. Only four out of every 100 children in Africa is expected to enter a graduate and postgraduate institution, compared to 36 out of 100 in Latin America and 14 out of 100 in South and West Asia.

“In fact, only 30 to 50% of secondary-school-aged children are attending school, while only 7 to 23% of tertiary-school-aged youth are enrolled. This varies by subregion, with the lowest levels being in Central and Eastern Africa and the highest enrolment levels in Southern and North Africa,” Ms. Lusigi, who is also the strategic advisor for UNDP Africa, told Africa Renewal.

According to Ms. Lusigi, many factors account for the low transition from primary to secondary and tertiary education. The first is limited household incomes, which limit children’s access to education. A lack of government investment to create equal access to education also plays a part.   

“The big push that led to much higher primary enrolment in Africa was subsidized schooling financed by both public resources and development assistance,” she said. “This has not yet transitioned to providing free access to secondary- and tertiary-level education.”

Another barrier to advancing from primary to secondary education is the inability of national institutions in Africa to ensure equity across geographical and gender boundaries. Disabled children are particularly disadvantaged.

“Often in Africa, decisions to educate children are made within the context of discriminatory social institutions and cultural norms that may prevent young girls or boys from attending school,” says Ms. Lusigi.

Regarding gender equality in education, large gaps exist in access, learning achievement and advanced studies, most often at the expense of girls, although in some regions boys may be the ones at a disadvantage.

UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics reports that more girls than boys remain out of school in sub-Saharan Africa, where a girl can expect to receive only about nine years of schooling while boys can expect 10 years (including some time spent repeating classes).

More girls than boys drop out of school before completing secondary or tertiary education in Africa. Globally, women account for two-thirds of the 750 million adults without basic literacy skills.

Then there is the additional challenge of Africa’s poorly resourced education systems, the difficulties ranging from the lack of basic school infrastructure to poor-quality instruction. According to the Learning Barometer of the Brookings Institution, a US-based think tank, up to 50% of the students in some countries are not learning effectively.

Results from regional assessments by the UN indicate “poor learning outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa, despite upward trend in average learning achievements.” Many children who are currently in school will not learn enough to acquire the basic skills needed to lead successful and productive lives. Some will leave school without a basic grasp of reading and mathematics.

The drivers of inequality in education are many and complex, yet the response to these challenges revolves around simple and sound policies for inclusive growth, the eradication of poverty and exclusion, increased investment in education and human development, and good governance to ensure a fairer distribution of assets.

With an estimated 364 million Africans between the ages of 15 and 35, the continent has the world’s youngest population, which offers an immense opportunity for investing in the next generation of African leaders and entrepreneurs. Countries can start to build and upgrade education facilities and provide safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all.

The AU, keeping in mind that the continent’s population will double in the next 25 years, is seeking through its Continental Education Strategy for Africa 2016–2025 to expand access not just to quality education, but also to education that is relevant to the needs of the continent.

The AU Commission deputy chairperson, Thomas Kwesi Quartey, says governments must address the need for good education and appropriate skills training to stem rising unemployment.

Institutions of higher learning in Africa, he says, need to review and diversify their systems of education and expand the level of skills to make themselves relevant to the demands of the labour market.

“Our institutions are churning out thousands of graduates each year, but these graduates cannot find jobs because the education systems are traditionally focused on preparing graduates for white-collar jobs, with little regard to the demands of the private sector, for innovation or entrepreneurship,” said Mr. Quartey during the opening of the European Union–Africa Business Forum in Brussels, Belgium, in June 2017.

He noted that if African youths are not adequately prepared for the job market, “Growth in technical fields that support industrialization, manufacturing and development in the value chains will remain stunted.” Inequality’s inclusion among the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities) serves as an important reminder to leaders in Africa to take the issue seriously.

For a start, access to early childhood development programmes, especially for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, can help reduce inequality by ensuring that all children begin formal schooling with strong foundations.

The UNDP, through its new strategic plan (for 2018 through 2021), will work to deliver development solutions for diverse contexts and a range of development priorities, including poverty eradication, jobs and livelihoods, governance and institutional capacity and disaster preparedness and management.   

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Africa’s Education Crisis: In School But Not Learning

Subscribe to the center for universal education bulletin, justin van fleet justin van fleet former brookings expert, director - the education commission @justinvanfleet.

September 17, 2012

Access more content from the Center for Universal Education here , including work in our Skills for a Changing World series .

It’s unfathomable that of Africa’s nearly 128 million school-aged children, 17 million will never attend school. Perhaps even more shocking is the fact that another 37 million African children will learn so little while in they are in school that they will not be much better off than those kids who never attend school. As a consequence, the prognosis for Africa’s future economic growth and social development is poor.

These numbers come from the new  Africa Learning Barometer created by the Center for Universal Education at Brookings. Our objective was to identify a baseline assessment of learning in Africa by using the existing data. Using data from regional examinations, such as Programme d’Analyse des Systèmes Educatifs de la CONFEMEN (PASEC)and Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) , and national assessments of 4th or 5th grade students, the barometer provides a picture of the state of learning for 28 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In each of these assessments, we identified a cutoff point at which students scoring below that level were learning so little that they had no value added to their education. While these tests do not even begin to scratch the surface on the values, knowledge and skills that children should learn in school to live healthy, productive lives, they do provide some basic indications about the state of learning in the region.

The findings are astonishing. There are seven countries in which 40 percent or more of children do not meet a minimum standard of learning by grades 4 or 5. In countries such as Ethiopia, Nigeria and Zambia, over half of in-school students are not learning basic skills by the end of primary school. Through the barometer we aggregate the total number of children not learning based on out-of-school children at the end of primary school, children who are likely to drop out by the 5th grade, and those in school but not learning. The results are distressing. Under the current model, half of sub-Saharan Africa’s total primary school population – 61 million children – will reach adolescence without the basic skills needed to lead successful and productive lives.

The barometer also points out the massive inequalities between the rich and poor. Looking at the rates of extreme education poverty in the region, the percentage of adults with less than two years of education show the disadvantages that poor, rural students face in accessing education in comparison to their rich and urban counterparts. For instance, in Ethiopia, 68.3 percent of the poorest quintile of the population lives in education poverty, compared to only 13.8 percent of the richest.

While there is much reason to celebrate the progress in education that Africa has made over the past decade, the barometer shows us that there is a deeper learning crisis that needs to be addressed. Unless African governments and the international community work together and act now to raise standards and improve learning outcomes, the potential of tens of millions of African youth will be wasted and Africa’s social and economic progress will stagnate.

Please explore the data and trends from the  Africa Learning Barometer to learn more about the education crisis in Africa.

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Education in Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa has the fastest growing child population in the world. Yet, the current education system is at capacity, and the demand will increase with nearly 750 million children expected to be of school age by 2060. This rapid increase in cohorts of children and young people presents a significant fiscal pressure on governments in terms of service delivery needs, early childhood development interventions, and sustained investment in accessible and quality education for all, especially girls.

In 2024, the African Union is focused on the theme of education: “Educate an African fit for the 21st Century.” The World Bank’s work in support of the AU Year of Education will focus on four topics: Foundational Learning; Jobs and Skills; Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and Higher Education; and Education Finance. Below is an overview of recent activities and stories in these key areas.

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Free secondary education in African countries is on the rise - but is it the best policy? What the evidence says

Associate Professor in Education & International Development, University of Cambridge

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When President Salva Kiir announced the abolition of secondary school fees in South Sudan in February 2023, he was following several fellow African leaders.

Ghana , Madagascar , Malawi , Sierra Leone , Togo , and Zambia have all announced free secondary education policies in the last five years. Rwanda, Kenya and South Africa were early trendsetters in this regard.

Despite its popularity with policymakers, parents and other stakeholders, the abolition of secondary school fees in resource-constrained contexts is still a subject of debate.

The African Union , global NGOs like Human Rights Watch and various United Nations agencies are in favour.

Others are sceptical. They highlight financial sustainability and equity implications, especially at the upper secondary level. A report by the Malala Fund, a global education NGO, argued that free upper secondary education “would be regressive in nature” and might not be affordable for low-income countries.

We conducted a systematic review to take stock of the evidence. We conclude that free secondary education can be costly and inequitable in the short run, especially if it diverts resources from primary education. Based on these findings, we recommend a policy of “progressive universalism”: free education should be introduced gradually, starting with the lowest levels.

Setting the scene

Many African countries abolished primary school fees in the 1990s and early 2000s. This led to a major rise in enrolment . But secondary school enrolment rates still lag far behind those in other world regions. Less than half of children in sub-Saharan Africa complete lower secondary education, compared to around 80% in South Asia and Latin America. High fees and related costs are a major impediment , particularly for children from low-income backgrounds.

The number of sub-Saharan Africa countries with free secondary education policies in place has increased rapidly over the last two decades. Almost half of all African countries now offer fee-free education at the lower secondary level. Almost one in three does so at the upper secondary level. The aim of the recent wave of free secondary education policies is to raise overall education levels – and, ultimately, countries’ broader prosperity and social conditions .

Abolishing school fees is also popular with voters . This may have been on the minds of politicians seeking to win or maintain power.

The cost of free education

There are two major problems with secondary school fee abolition in resource-constrained states. The first is that, in most African countries, the majority of children from poor households would be ineligible for free secondary education. In Somalia, Niger and Mozambique, less than one in five of the poorest children complete primary school .

Read more: Only 1 in 3 girls makes it to secondary school in Senegal: here's why and how to fix it

Moreover, even those eligible for free secondary education are often unable to attend. School fees constitute less than half of households’ education spending in most African countries. Most free secondary education policies do not cover the cost of essential non-fee expenses such as textbooks, school uniforms, meals and transport. Nominally “free” secondary education can therefore be unaffordable for low-income households . This means the benefits of fee abolition would mainly accrue to children from relatively privileged households and not help those who needed it most.

The second problem is that enacting these policies is very expensive. Empirical evidence from Ghana , The Gambia , Kenya and other countries shows that free secondary education policies can substantially increase secondary school enrolment and completion rates in the short run. But they do so at a very high cost: the average expense per senior secondary student is equivalent to that of five primary school pupils .

Considering the precarious financial position of many African states, providing free secondary schooling to the entire population is likely to be fiscally unsustainable.

It may also divert scarce resources away from basic education, which is already chronically underfunded. In Malawi for example, which recently abolished secondary school fees, there are more than 70 students per primary school teacher.

What is to be done?

Access to education is a human right . In an ideal world, the global community would ensure that all children could enjoy a full cycle of free, high-quality education.

Most African countries are far removed from this scenario, however. Policymakers must balance the potential benefits of abolishing secondary school fees against the urgent need for investment in basic education.

In many cases, this would suggest a phased approach to introducing free education, which prioritises public spending on basic education in the short run, while asking wealthier households to contribute to the cost of higher levels of education. A good example is South Africa’s fee-free schools policy, which was designed to increase enrolment in the poorest districts.

Mohammed Alhassan Abango and Leslie Casely-Hayford of Associates for Change, Ghana co-authored this article and the research it is based upon.

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The high price of education in Sub-Saharan Africa

Leora klapper, mansi vipin panchamia.

The promise of universal primary and secondary education is one of the Sustainable Development Goals . Yet in 2020, about 64 million children were out of primary school, including 34 million girls. Over 195 million children globally were out of secondary school.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rates of education exclusion of the six developing world regions. Over one-fifth of primary-age children are out of school, and almost 60 percent of youth between the ages of 15 and 17 are not in school. There are many barriers to education for low-income households. One of them is school fees, which unfortunately remain widespread in schools across Sub-Saharan Africa, causing financial stress to families. Digital financial services are one way to help families manage school fee payments so they can keep their children in school. 

New Global Findex data finds that over half (54 percent) of adults in Sub-Saharan Africa are very worried about paying school fees, and 29 percent name school fees as their biggest financial worry (above medical expenses, paying for old age, and monthly bills). In a dozen Sub-Saharan African countries, including Kenya and Nigeria, school fees are the most commonly reported financial worry.

Across Africa, 21 percent of enrolled students attend a private school, and that share is much higher in certain economies. Even in countries like Uganda, which offers free primary education, parents still have ancillary school expenses for uniforms, exam fees, school upkeep, books, or hiring an extra teacher. The cost of sending a child to school in Uganda varies from US$168 for government schools to US$420-680 for private schools. At the same time, more than 60 percent of adults in Uganda are very worried about school fees; for 40 percent of adults, school fees are the biggest source of financial worry. This is not surprising, as about 42 percent of Ugandans live below the poverty line of US$2.15 per day (about $785 per year).

Figure 1: Share of adults most financially worried about school fees (%, age 15+)

Note: Asterisk indicates that women are significantly more likely than men to cite school fees as their biggest financial worry. Source: Global Findex database, 2021.

Women are significantly more likely than men to cite school fees as their most significant financial worry, at 31 percent, compared with 26 percent of men (Figure 1). There are many reasons why women might report greater financial stress about school fees than men. For instance, women might be responsible for making school fee payments or might worry less than men about other expenses, such as monthly bills. Recent research on intrahousehold bargaining also suggests that women might bear a greater burden of the stress of school fees because they have less control than men over household spending decisions for education.

Given the importance of education and the challenges that low-income households face affording it, what financial solutions exist to help? Global Findex data suggests three opportunities:

• Digitalizing school fee payments: School fees are typically due in full at the beginning of a school term, which can be challenging if a family’s income is low at that time since poor families often have spikes and dips in income. More than 60 percent of adults are smallholder farmers with variable cash flows, for example, and a survey has found that families find school fees easier to afford when they fall due shortly after harvest.

If fees are digitalized, it becomes easier for parents to make and schools to accept incremental payments.  For example, schools and parents can determine a fee schedule that matches the household’s seasonal income flows.

The transition may be easier for adults with experience making digital payments: Among the 29 percent of adults in Sub-Saharan Africa who named school fees as their biggest financial worry, about half also made or received a digital payment using a card or phone, including 34 percent who have a mobile money account.

• Promoting formal savings: Fifty-seven percent of adults who name school fees as their biggest worry also saved—although only 13 percent saved formally with a bank or mobile money account. Formal savings accounts that include features to incentivize savings show promise as a tool to increase education access. This was demonstrated in Kenya , where researchers evaluated the impact of a commitment savings account for education that included an interest rate bonus on funds saved until a goal date. Parents who saved were 18-24 percentage points more likely to enroll their children in high school. The results using a more conventional mobile savings account without the commitment bonus were nearly the same, suggesting that having an easy way to save, not the bonus, was enough to affect parental behavior.
• Promoting formal credit: Borrowing is also high among adults who worry about school fees: 58 percent borrowed from any source, including family and friends, but only 9 percent borrowed from a formal financial institution. Providing borrowing options for education could help drive enrolment, as shown in Uganda , where a large home solar system provider (which offered financing options for its solar solutions) introduced a school fees loan product, underwritten using customer data on the solar loan product. The education loans were associated with a 50 percent reduction in the share of children out of school, and borrowers increased their education spending by 36 percent. 

The long-term consequences of low enrollment or gaps in schooling should not be underestimated. Digital financial services cannot address all the barriers keeping children out of school. However, there is potential to alleviate some of the problems families face by equipping them with tools to save and make payments. 

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Exploring Higher Education Demand and Opportunities for Young Refugees in Africa

• Late Lawson Education Sub-Saharan Africa, United Kingdom
• Pauline Essah Education Sub-Saharan Africa, United Kingdom
• Krista Samson Education Sub-Saharan Africa, Ghana
• Michaelene Welsh-Kinnersley Education Sub-Saharan Africa, Switzerland

Higher education for young people, including marginalised groups, is essential for equitable and sustainable development. There is limited research on refugees’ access to higher education, especially in developing countries. This article contributes to the literature on refugee education by raising awareness of the demand for education and issues surrounding refugees’ access to higher education in West and Central Africa (WCA). We consider changes in the population of young refugees as a proxy for shifts in their demand for education and map available opportunities and challenges. Our analysis of refugee youth demographic data indicates increasing trends in most WCA countries, signalling rapidly growing demand for (higher) education by refugees in their countries of asylum. Mapping these countries’ provision of refugee education opportunities and dedicated scholarship programmes for refugees, as well as interviews with refugee students promotes understanding of the conditions and challenges they confront in the transition to higher education in their host countries. The article highlights the urgency of the refugee situation in Africa and calls for immediate and practical action to facilitate and support refugees’ access to tertiary education.

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• UNICEF joins forces with Africa Union to prioritize education in 2024

Year of Education 2024

During their recent Summit, the African Union recently convened Heads of State to launch their Year of Education 2024 under 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”.

By declaring 2024 as the Year of Education, the AU intends to galvanize action to accelerate the achievement of SDG 4 and the Continental Strategy for Education in Africa (CESA).

Speaking on behalf of UNICEF, Lieke Van Der Wiel, DRD ESARO said, “Education is the right of every child and the foundation for children’s well-being, happiness, growth, and lifelong learning. It is an enormous positive step that the AU has translated the above and called for a year of education in 2024. This gives us a tremendous opportunity and responsibility to use the momentum to the fullest and develop the human capital for the future of the continent.”

Over the past two decades, African Governments have made substantial efforts to get children into schools.  Completion rates in Africa between 2000 and 2022 went from 52 to 69 percent in primary, 35 to 50 percent in lower secondary and 23 to 33 percent in upper secondary education. This is impressive: today more children are in school than ever before, and completion rates have increased at all levels.

However, despite this progress, more than one in four (29 per cent) school-age children were still out of school on the continent, with a concerning statistic revealing that the out-of-school population in sub-Saharan Africa increased by 12 million over 2015–2021. Quality is also of concern even for those in school: 9 out of 10 children in sub-Saharan Africa could not read and understand a simple text by the age of 10.

Education, especially foundational learning and early childhood education, is one of UNICEF ESARO’s flagship programmes for 2024. Throughout the year UNICEF will work with governments, key regional bodies and development partners to rethink the models and modalities of education and skills development needed for Africa in the 21st century.

In particular, we will support governments and other education decision-makers around these four advocacy asks:  

• Invest in proven and cost-effective solutions to improve literacy and numeracy in the early years , by equipping children, every girl and boy, with solid foundational and socio-emotional skills, which, in the long run, will help reverse performance gaps and better position children to obtain higher-level knowledge and competencies in later years, including digital skills and climate change knowledge.  This must start with ensuring that teachers and relevant support personal are adequately trained to support quality learning for every child. Improving literacy and numeracy starts with a solid early learning. Every child must have access to early childhood education at a minimum one year of organized learning for effective transition to primary school.
• Ensure that funding is sufficient and appropriate. Throughout the years you must have heard the cliché of at least 20% of a country’s total budget should invested in education . Part of that budget should be dedicated to children’s critical first years. At least 10% should be invested in pre-primary education thus increasing access to quality, inclusive early childhood education.
• Investments must be early (so more to pre and primary than to tertiary education. We need to go beyond our traditional thinking of schools as buildings but schools as places , any place where learning take place . Why waiting for schools to be built to catch up with the fast-growing population if there are community centres, churches and mosques. The more innovative we are in our thinking and practices, the more progress in transforming for real the education system.
• Investments must prioritize the most likely to be left behind. Education is a human right for all children, always and everywhere – girls, children with disabilities, children from rural or poor communities or those experiencing emergency or crisis situations.

Related topics

More to explore, rising heat, drought and disease: climate crisis poses grave risks to children in eastern and southern africa, who africa, unicef and partners poised to advance implementation of baby-friendly hospital initiative in countries, international day of education 2024: advancing learning for lasting peace, as cholera cases continue to rise in parts of southern africa, unicef calls for increased focus on children in the cholera response.

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Education in africa: policies : books, journal articles, theses.

• Policies : Books, Journal Articles, Theses
• Traditional, Islamic, & "Western" Education
• Higher Education Equity
• African Immigrants and Education in the United States

Books, Journal Articles, and Reports

• Africa's Future, Africa's Challenge : Early Childhood Care and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa. (2008) --via Open Knowledge Repository "This book [from The World Bank] seeks to achieve a balance, describing challenges that are being faced as well as developments that are underway...It seeks to provide the voices of specialists and generalists, of those from international and local organizations, from academia and the field...The major focus of this book is on Sub-Saharan Africa from the Sahel south."
• African Futures and Childhood Studies in Africa = Futurs africains et les études sur l'enfance en Afrique . Edited by Tatek Abebe. Dakar, Senegal : CODESRIA, Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, [2022] "This book explores the connections between changing childhoods and versions of African futures to develop insights into how children are living embodiments of history and prospective agents of social change...The authors of ten chapters discuss findings linked to apprenticeship, learning, work, rights, schools, peace, education, aspirations, conflicts and refugee integration...They describe studies in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa and Zimbabwe ."

• This seminal World Bank publication focuses on education in Sub-Saharan Africa, its policies for adjustment, revitalization, and expansion.

• Marking one third of the time span set in Dakar in the year 2000 for reaching Universal Primary Education (UPE), this report, based on the data available in 2007 (2004-2006), establishes a fairly precise assessment of the trends observed in Africa in the early 2000s and endeavors to identify the successes and failures, in order to offer useful lessons.

• This second edition of a collection of comparative and international research articles takes a fresh look at the heart of fundamental debates about the role of schools in society, the links between education and employment, and conflicts between linguistic minorities and "mainstream" populations.
• This journal article reports on the outcomes of a study on inclusive education (IE) policies in South Africa, Ghana and Uganda . Persons with disabilities live within communities and are raised by the values that apply within their communal context. Policymaking is intricately linked to policy implementation, and the inclusion of local knowledge strengthens policy influence, impacting on implementation processes.
• Drawing on 1650 English-language articles published in internationally-recognized, peer-reviewed journals between 2010 and 2018, this report offers an analysis of major patterns in the thematic areas of research from the region, as well as funding, collaborations, and institutional and national patterns that characterize the education research landscape.

• The chapters presented in this volume, edited by Francis R. Owino, were read at the First International Conference on African Languages hosted by Maseno University [Kenya], in collaboration with the Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society, Cape Town, South Africa.

Dissertations and Theses

• "Academic Commons" : Search for all Columbia University theses and other open access texts
• Guides to Dissertations and Masters Theses--All --via "Basic Guide to Research on Africa"

Recent Columbia Ph.D Theses

• This dissertation assesses the effectiveness of the Ugandan Universal Secondary Education policy. It seeks to ascertain whether and to what extent offering free-tuition education at eligible public and private secondary schools has affected gross enrollment rates at the lower secondary school level in Uganda between 2007 and 2015.
• This dissertation explores the interventions of American philanthropic foundations in educational programs for British Africa after the First World War. It reveals the extent to which a discourse of education – pedagogy and research – allowed American philanthropic groups, and the numerous governmental and nongovernmental organizations with which they cooperated, to shape the interwar British Empire, and institutionalize a colonial ideology that aligned with American corporate and cultural interests.
• The aim of this dissertation is to identify effective educational interventions in Sub-Saharan African with an impact on student learning. This is the first meta-analysis in the field of education conducted for Sub-Saharan Africa.
• This dissertation explores the formation of the radical #RMF student movements at the University of Cape Town, South Africa and Oxford University in the UK—referred to as the Fallist movements. Based on an empirical analysis of the #RMF’s engagement in epistemic disobedience at both UCT and Oxford, the author argues that the university occupies a paradoxical position for Black and other marginalized bodies.
• Using the case of South Africa, an African country beset by xenophobia--most notably, the infamous xenophobic riots of 2008, this exploratory baseline sociological study sought to document how the social context of a developing country influences educational policy implementation and interpretation with regard to access for immigrant students.
• Based on 21 months of ethnographic research in South Africa, including participant observation, A Ticket to Life explores how students, alumni, families, and staff of a low-fee independent high school in Cape Town’s oldest township, navigate the racial and spatial politics of aspiration in an anti-Black city as well as how the school is embedded in the broader racialized politics of transnational education reform.
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Africa: Worried About How to Support Your Child's Education? Here Are Four Useful Steps You Can Take

Parents play a crucial role in supporting their children's learning. Their involvement lays the foundation for success both inside and outside the classroom. This makes a parent's consistent support and nurturing important at every stage of formal schooling, and even before that.

The key lies in creating a supportive and encouraging environment at home.

In the school environment, teachers tend to be instructional leaders. This means they often focus on the classroom process of teaching and learning. Together, however, parents and teachers can help boost a child's learning by sharing educational responsibilities at home and in school.

Teachers often favour traditional modes of parental involvement . This includes having parents supervise school outings or raise funds for school activities.

But it's possible to find a middle ground that harnesses the experiences of teachers and parents, and communicates expectations clearly. This would lead to three positive outcomes : reduced misunderstandings, the development of mutual goals and establishing trust for the teacher-parent partnership.

Read more: How parents and teachers can make school a happy place for kids

For more than a decade, through the African Population and Health Research Center's Advancing Learning Outcomes and Transformational Change (ALOT Change) programme , I have studied how parents' involvement in education can advance learning outcomes. This can be done by monitoring children's progress in school and helping them complete their homework. Knowing where their children are and who their friends are, and being available to offer insights on issues related to puberty, are also crucial.

To support a child's educational journey, parents across all socioeconomic groups need to do four main things. First, they need to meet their family obligations , which include providing food, shelter and paying school fees. Second, they should provide a conducive environment for children to work on homework assignments. Third, parents need to motivate their children to stay focused on learning and avoid peer pressure . Finally, should the need arise, parents should seek support to be educated and empowered on how to help their children succeed in school.

To begin with, parents should meet their basic obligations at home and collaborate at the community level. Ensuring children are fed and their fees are paid keeps them in school. Good nutrition improves cognitive function , while paying fees boosts school attendance , enhancing a child's learning. Across all income groups, but particularly in low-income neighbourhoods, community collaboration enables parents to access the support and resources necessary for their children's learning . This could mean exchanging ideas with other parents, or getting access to career advisers and sports facilities. Collaboration at the community level provides social capital . This creates opportunities for bonding , which promotes a child's social adjustment.

Second, parents should provide their children with places to study, monitor their progress with homework and understand how they are progressing through various grades . Spaces for study should be quiet and well-organised, but they don't have to be at home. They can be safe spaces within communities , such as churches. Parents can get involved in monitoring their children's progress by actively communicating with teachers and volunteering in schools , both private and public. This allows parents to get involved in the planning, development and decision-making process of school activities for the benefit of their children.

Third, parents need to provide young children with nurturing care before they begin formal education. They should maintain this caring support throughout the basic education cycle. Parents play key roles as co-educators of their children . This means going beyond just providing the resources needed for learning to supporting a child's personal development. Parents can do this by encouraging their children to ask questions, which can be answered by their older peers or mentors. Children also need sufficient playtime and sleep . Parents should motivate their children to complete assigned school assignments by, for instance, shortening the time spent on domestic chores, especially for girls. They should also monitor and give guidance on homework where possible, and provide learning aids and materials for practical activities.

Read more: Education in Kenya's informal settlements can work better if parents get involved -- here's how

Fourth, I was part of a research team at the African Population and Health Research Centre that found that giving parents access to counsellors to guide them on how to support their children's schooling improved education performances in informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya.

Under this intervention, parents were taught what their role is as the first supporters of their children's education. This role includes taking the time to understand their children, opening lines of communication, discussing sexual and reproductive health matters, and encouraging positive aspirations. The results included an improvement in children's literacy.

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When we asked pupils to explain the relationship between parental support and achievements in literacy and numeracy, they reported a better understanding of mathematical concepts, enhanced ability to interpret mathematical problem statements and improvements in understanding algebra and composition . One of the reasons for this outcome was that both parents and pupils were more open with each other. They shared their opinions, needs and actions.

Expected outcomes

Parental involvement in education empowers children to reach their full potential. It improves their academic performance, enhances their social and emotional development, and increases their motivation and engagement. Parental involvement tends to lead to better school attendance, positive behaviour and higher aspirations for future success. When parents take an active role in their children's learning, it fosters stronger parent-child relationships, creating a supportive environment for academic growth and personal development.

Benta A. Abuya , Research Scientist, African Population and Health Research Center

This article is republished from The Conversation Africa under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

AllAfrica publishes around 400 reports a day from more than 100 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals , representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct.

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Reinforcing Higher Education in Africa

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With 70% of the entire population under 30, youth are one of Africa’s greatest reasons for optimism, and access to higher education for this youth should be a major driver for economic development, social cohesion and lasting peace. Yet, tapping into this potential continues to face several challenges. Ways of tackling these challenges was at the heart of a UNESCO Chairs Seminar on 21 September 2023 under the theme  Reinforcing Higher Education in Africa.

Framing the discussions were UNESCO’s  2022 Higher Education Road Map and  Campus Africa , one of the flagship programmes of UNESCO’s  Operational Strategy for Priority Africa (2022-2029). Campus Africa aims to build integrated, inclusive, and quality tertiary education systems and institutions, for the development of inclusive and equitable societies on the continent, as outlined by Rita Bissoonauth, Director of the UNESCO Liaison Office to the African Union. Borhene Chakroun, Director of UNESCO’s Policies and Lifelong Learning Systems Division set the tone of the debate, saying in his opening remarks that, “universities must become incubators for social transformation.”

The various speakers identified several challenges, including the region’s low enrolment in higher education, which is around 9%, compared to a global average of 42%. Whilst there is an increase in demand for higher education, universities in the region are   saturated and unable to provide an adequate learning environment, including for higher technical education. Higher education on the continent is currently underfunded at the national level, including investment in research and development which stands at an average of 0.38% of GDP (by comparison to 2.25% in Europe and North America). 

Other speakers also pointed to the high youth unemployment rate in Africa and the need to better align the skills of graduates to the labour market: currently, some 20-50% of graduates cannot find a job after graduation. The lack of quality assurance authorities and mechanisms in Africa, by comparison to other continents, was also underscored, whilst Prof. Jean Koulidiati, Rector, Pan-African University, also pointed to the inadequate teacher training.

“Higher education must be grounded on the concept of working together rather than individual pursuit, which goes against principles of Ubuntu.”

Prof. Mpine Makoe, Executive Dean, College of Education, UNISA, in her keynote speech, traced many of the current difficulties in African higher education systems to the colonial systems that imposed curricula that “were meant to subjugate”. This, she argued has led to an inequitable system, elitist in nature, with too few people shaping economic growth, leading to disillusionment and conflict. As ever greater numbers seek access to higher education, it is an opportune moment to reflect on systems and structures, aligning them to a social justice mandate. Access to higher education should be open to more diverse groups, be affordable and guaranteed as a human right and the curricula should be decolonized. Above all, higher education should be reshaped in line with African needs and be “grounded on the concept of working together rather than individual pursuit, which goes against principles of Ubuntu , which means ‘ I am because we are’ ”.

Promising Avenues

Overall, the Seminar strongly underscored the need for harmonization at the continental level and to strengthen cooperation within Africa,   in terms of knowledge sharing and development, so that institutions and researchers can meaningfully contribute to Africa’s future. It raised further awareness of the lack of adequate infrastructure for research, teaching and learning due to the insufficient evolution of funding mechanisms within countries in line with the rising demand of young people entering higher education. Furthermore, several interventions highlighted the need to accelerate ratification and adherence to the UNESCO 2014 “ Addis Convention ” that facilitates the recognition of higher education qualifications. Speakers noted the importance of the Convention in promoting governmental and institutional cooperation, facilitating the harmonization of recognition systems across the region and enhancing academic and students’ mobility. 

There was unanimous agreement among speakers that digital technologies, including artificial intelligence, offer great potential for opening up educational opportunities across the continent. As Prof. Olusola Oyewole, Secretary General, African Association of Universities, raised, digital technologies allow for innovation and the opportunity to assess knowledge from a huge range of sources. To fully capitalize on the potential of digital technologies also requires pan-African cooperation, as outlined by Prof. Souleymane Konaté, Secretary General, Conseil Africain et Malgache pour l’Enseignement Supérieur. To tackle funding shortfalls, Prof. Aissatou Sy Wonyu, Director of Agence universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF) for Southern Africa and Indian Ocean, pointed to innovations in funding mechanisms and cooperation partnerships with the private sector, including building synergies with research labs. Indeed, Prof. Catherine A. Odora Hoppers, Professor of Education, Gulu University, made the point that to transform higher education, we need people who are not in higher education. “To enter into the transformation, other people must come in, other people who have different ideas of living”. Prof. Odora Hoppers referred to higher education as a “banquet table”, saying that “we must introduce new concepts to banquet table so that we are not just assimilated into it”. Prof. Patricia Pavallicini brought students into focus, saying that new models for higher education need to be relevant and stable, with emphasis on inclusion and gender equality.

With Africa being one of UNESCO’s global priorities, the Seminar sought to enhance collaboration amongst higher education stakeholders. This series of UNESCO Chairs Seminars on Transforming Knowledge for Africa’s Future creates spaces for discussion, knowledge sharing and mutual exchange.

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UN pays tribute to victims of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

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Top UN officials, including the Secretary-General and the President of the General Assembly on Monday paid tribute to the millions of men, women and children who suffered as a result of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, one of most devastating chapters in human history.

Addressing a commemorative meeting to mark the International Day of Remembrance of The Victims of Slavery and The Transatlantic Slave Trade , Assembly President Dennis Francis highlighted the harrowing journeys endured by millions during the so-called Middle Passage, emphasizing the stripping of their identities and dignity.

“It is inconceivable that the enslaved were cruelly regarded as mere commodities for sale and exploitation,” he said .

“Together with their children born into slavery, perpetuating the vicious cycle of bondage and suffering – enduring untold horrors at the hands of their oppressors,” he added.

Pursuance of justice

Assembly President Francis paid tribute to revolutionary figures such as Samuel Sharpe, Sojourner Truth, and Gaspar Yanga, who bravely fought for freedom, paving the way for abolitionist movements and inspiring generations to challenge injustice.

He emphasized the ongoing impact of slavery’s legacy, calling for accountability and reparations as essential components of pursuing true justice, stressing the urgent need to address systemic racism and discrimination faced by people of African descent, both historically and in contemporary society.

“It is incumbent upon States, institutions, and individuals to acknowledge their roles in perpetuating these legacies of injustice – and to take meaningful steps towards reparatory justice,” he said.

Echoes continue today

Also on Monday, Courtenay Rattray, Chef de Cabinet of the Secretary-General, delivered a message on behalf of the UN chief , further amplifying the call for remembrance and justice.

Reading the Secretary-General’s message, Mr. Rattray echoed the sentiments of honouring the millions who suffered under the brutal regime of slavery.

“For four hundred years, enslaved Africans fought for their freedom, while colonial powers and others committed horrific crimes against them,” he said.

“Many of those who organized and ran the Transatlantic slave trade amassed huge fortunes,” he continued, noting that the enslaved were deprived of education, healthcare, opportunity, and prosperity.

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“This laid the foundations for a violent discrimination system based on white supremacy that still echoes today.”

Mr. Rattray underscored the need for reparatory justice frameworks to help overcome generations of exclusion and discrimination, urging united effort towards a world free from racism, discrimination, bigotry and hate.

“Together, as we remember the victims of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, let’s unite for human rights, dignity and opportunity for all.”

Carrying on legacy to end racism

Also addressing the General Assembly, 15-year-old activist Yolanda Renee King of the United States said she was at the UN to be a changemaker.

“I stand before you today as a proud descendent of enslaved people who resisted slavery and racism,” she said.

“Like my grandparents, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, my parents, Martin Luther King III and Arndrea Waters King, have also dedicated their lives to putting an end to racism and all forms of bigotry and discrimination. Like them, I am committed to the fight against racial injustice and to carrying on the legacy of my grandparents.”

‘We shall overcome’

Calling on young people to lead the way to a better world, she said “we must connect via the internet and organize across national boundaries around the world.”

This will open up new possibilities for global campaigns to advance human rights and social justice for all nations, she added.

“Let’s today affirm the bonds on interdependence that unite freedom and justice loving people everywhere,” she said. “All the young people in the world should embrace the future with hope, optimism and radiant assurance that we shall overcome, as sisters and brothers of all races, religions and nations.”

• International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade
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