The Africa Commission
on Effective Development Cooperation with Africa
Conference on the Educational Challenge in Ouagadougou
16 June 2008
DRAFT AS OF 9 June 2008
______________________________________________________________________________
1. A Comprehensive Approach to the Education Sector
Education has an indisputably positive bearing on economic growth and poverty reduction. It is important to instil democratic values, to enhance citizenship and to increase participation in decision making processes at the local, national, and international level. Education for all is crucial for reducing the inequality between genders and urban and rural populations, and for including groups that have traditionally been marginalized because of ethnicity, language, religion, or disability. Education enhances health and hygiene in the family, helps combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, and it reduces fertility and infant mortality rates. Education empowers people and can play a crucial role in creating and maintaining peace and stability and for avoiding radicalism and conflicts. Hence, the benefits of education influence and permeate the development both of the individual and of society.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 1948 states that everyone has the right to education, and since Jomtien in 1990 the international society has unanimously supported the goal of Education for All. This was turned into six goals and 12 targets with the signing of 160 countries of the Dakar Framework for Action in 2000. Together with the MDG 2 and 3 the Dakar Framework has served as a major point of reference for national education policies and donor support to these.
Correspondingly, the focus of many national policies in developing countries has been on primary education, and on average, low-income countries allocate almost half of total education expenditure to primary education, around 28 per cent to secondary and 16 percent to tertiary. It is noteworthy, however, that the full EFA agenda has not been widely adopted and inattention e.g. to both adult education and early childhood development has been the norm in most African countries.
The education chain is clear: early childhood care and education, and primary school, establish the basis of knowledge and skills of the population, and is indispensable for further education. Nonetheless, primary education in itself is rarely enough to prepare young people to contribute to development in a globalizing world. Knowledge, skills and competencies associated with abstract reasoning, analysis, language and communication skills, and the application of science and technology are required. These skills are acquired through secondary schooling, including technical and vocational education and training, and tertiary education. In addition, tertiary education is critical for research and development and it provides for teachers and trainers at all levels, as well as more specialized skills for the economy.
The interdependence between the various levels underlines why it is imperative to have a comprehensive approach to education policy development and financing.
National development strategies are the basis for prioritizing public investment, and it is likely that the achievement of both universal primary completion and an expansion of secondary education would require a combination of an enlarged education envelope in real terms, an increased proportional share of this for secondary education, and efficiency measures.
Even so, public financial resources are likely to be insufficient. A combination of public poverty-oriented investments, and private sector involvement would be required, especially for post-primary levels of education.
The comprehensive approach should increasingly be reflected in the dialogue between partner countries and development partners. Once coherent and credible education strategies comprising all sub-sectors are in place, SWAps can be expanded accordingly while donors should stand prepared to provide support for this and engage in comprehensive dialogue around the priorities of the whole sector.
In conclusion, balanced educational investments, addressing all levels, are necessary for a robust and sustainable development. It might be the single most important tool in breaking perpetual cycles of intergenerational poverty. But it will only work if education systems offer relevant quality education to children and their families at affordable costs. If education systems do not deliver on both of these parameters, the inevitable conclusion for many families is that they are better off keeping their children out of school to earn an income or helping out in the household. Moreover, education in the longer run will be most valuable to individuals and communities when it contributes actively not only to employment preparation but also to employment generation.
a. Primary and Basic Education
Africa has made great progress in gross enrolment in primary education in recent years, while progress on the other EFA goals has been limited. However, average net enrolment rate in SSA is still only 70 per cent with a survival rate of about 63 per cent. School achievements are generally poor, attrition is high and there is an estimated 30 million children of school-age who are out of school. In addition, more than 150 million adults are illiterate[1]; this challenge alone underscores the need for further development and support to primary education. A key instrument in getting these children into school and preventing them from dropping out is to increase the quality of education, through, among other, more and better educated teachers, relevant curricula and teaching materials.
Key instruments in attracting children into school and preventing them from dropping out are to increase the quality of education through supply side interventions, (e.g. more and better educated teachers, improved school management, provision of teaching and learning instruments), and to strengthen demand-side interventions (e.g. free education, mother tongue instruction, adult literacy and adult basic education and training for parents, targeted school feeding, conditional cash transfers[2]). Evidence further suggests that the most productive interventions will be targeting the early stage in life.
Despite progress in primary education, there are gross imbalances in the performance of the six EFA goals, which to a large extent are the effects of disproportionate investments, and they are illustrative to the need for further development and support to basic education, including early childhood care and educational development (ECCD) and adult literacy.
The importance of ECCD interventions in terms of its strong positive impact on poverty related vulnerability and its contribution to the other EFA goals is well established. It is cheap and it yields very high economic returns[3] In addition, recent research has emphasized the lifelong importance of the brain development and learning that occur during the pre-school years.
Similarly adult literacy programmes have been shown to yield high returns both in terms of poverty reduction, economic growth, HIV/AIDS prevention, and community participation, reduced child mortality and improved maternal health[4]. These facts notwithstanding, adult literacy remains one of the most neglected education investments of all, both by governments and by donors[5].
It might be worthwhile exploring the reasons why investments in ECCD and adult education have, so far, received so little attention in most African countries despite its huge potential contribution to overall development.
In conclusion, UPE might best be achieved by acknowledging the way the six EFA goals interact. It appears that significant achievements in the EFA and millennium development goals are most likely to materialise where education sector plans and investments acknowledge the synergy and interdependence of all the six objectives. In most cases this would necessitate a review of the current priorities.
b. Secondary Education
Of the 93 million children of secondary-school age in SSA, only 25 million are enrolled in secondary schools, and many attend irregularly and fail to complete lower-secondary. Less than a third of a cohort completes lower secondary education to enrol in upper secondary grades. There is a large, and increasing, gap in secondary enrolment rates between SSA and other developing regions. This could have significant adverse impact on the competitiveness and growth in the region. Historical evidence shows that countries that have had the fastest sustained growth rates have been those with more balanced public investment across education levels and with relatively high secondary enrolment rates at the early stages of growth.
As an effect of the large increase in primary school enrolment accomplished in recent years, the pressure on secondary schooling has increased significantly. The increasing demand and increasing enrolment rates at secondary levels, combined with very limited resources in the sub-sector, has resulted in low investment per student and falling quality in secondary education.
Secondary schooling in countries in SSA with low secondary enrolment is generally expensive relative to GDP per capita. A further challenge is the demographics in SSA, where populations are young with many school-age children compared to working-age adults.
Although decreasing in recent years, large disparities still exist with respect to equity in secondary enrolment - boys are better off than girls, urban pupils better off than rural pupils, pupils from wealthier homes much better off than those from poorer homes (few children from outside the richest household quintile attend secondary school).
A growing consensus seems to be evolving in Africa that the next logical step in many national education systems will be to expand the objective of universal primary completion to an objective of 9-10 years Education for All. A strong case for investing in this level includes e.g. strong impacts on fertility rates and HIV/AIDS incidence. An expansion to 9-10 years of education for all will put significant strain on existing capacities and financial resources, but the arguments in terms of economic returns, social returns and equity measures are strong. Governments and donors could usefully consider possible strategies for implementing this ambitious agenda.
Many countries in SSA currently allocate very limited public expenditure to secondary education, so new, more ambitious, enrolment targets for secondary education would require rethinking overall public expenditure allocations. However, investing heavily in increasing enrolment in secondary education without addressing quality and relevance of teaching and learning, e.g. through curricula reform and teacher training, would meet the needs of neither students nor labour markets.
Achieving mass enrolment in secondary schooling will require revisiting the current financing and cost-recovery modalities, especially to ensure access to children from poorer households.
An important consideration is the role of private financing and strategies of cost-recovery in a situation of expanding secondary education. Generally, a higher degree of private financing has been accepted at higher levels of education, but public financing will still play a dominant role to ensure broad access to poorer segments of the population. In a sector framework, it should be considered how to better leverage the private sector, as service providers and as a source of financing, together with the public investments in post-primary education. In this context, public investment could be better targeted, i.e. attention should be given to the regressive nature of much of current public investment in secondary education and to alternative cost-recovery strategies. This could be in the form of introducing a more differentiated school fee structure, where more affluent students pay significantly higher fees, combined with scholarships and bursaries for less affluent students.
c. Technical and Vocational Education and Training and Skills Development
Technical and vocational education and training (TVET), as a subset of secondary education, is in short supply in most African countries. It is estimated that only 6 per cent of secondary students are enrolled in TVET in Sub-Saharan Africa.[6] Few African countries have developed comprehensive systems for TVET that encompass the many private and public, formal and non-formal schools. In many countries, the private sector and labour market organizations are not involved in the design of education systems and training programmes. Training is therefore often not demand driven, and the supply driven training programs in Africa have not had a convincing record. External support for TVET has, consequently, not been very successful, and has been declining for some years.
Yet, the starting point for vocational training must be a situation of economic growth creating more jobs and thus demand for skills. This is indeed now the situation in many countries in Africa. TVET is, therefore, a promising and underutilized strategy to provide skills and opportunities for young people for better employment, in a situation where many African countries are facing a shortage of skilled workers. But, effective vocational training requires awareness of and responsiveness to the labour market. There appears to be renewed interest and momentum in this area in many African countries and some donor agencies, e.g.the African Development Bank has decided to make TVET a focus area. The challenge, however, is how to provide relevant and cost-effective TVET integrated in national systems.
African economies have a pronounced dual structure with formal and informal sectors of the economy. With the informal economy accounting for almost 90% of the working population, the education systems and the skills they produce must be designed taking this into account. The upper levels of current formal education systems are mostly directed towards the formal economy, and even if a reasonable level of relevance for this formal subset of the economy is achieved[7], it is of less relevance to the much larger informal labour market. There are, however, positive experiences in Africa with targeting vocational training specifically to rural areas and the key trades in these areas, e.g. agriculture, fishing, breeding and agro-industry, with a focus on improving agricultural productivity.[8]
It is worth considering the distinction between vocational training and vocational preparation. As jobs and careers increasingly change over time, training for a very specific position may become less important, compared to vocational preparation that to a higher degree focuses on developing transferable skills. Increasingly, employers and employees place a high value on vocational preparation, more than vocational training, because of the inherent higher flexibility and value for future changing career tracks. This again raises the question of how to combine vocational education with the general secondary education system, which can also have a vocational preparation focus. Practical aspects to consider may include to what degree to co-locate vocational training and education with secondary schools, considering at the same time the need to ensure labour market relevance and implications for locating vocation training closer to the employment setting, i.e. normally outside of schools. Another key point to keep in mind is the almost prohibitive cost of maintaining and upgrading equipment of vocational schools, contributing to the high cost per student in vocational training – any large scale sustainable solution must address this issue.
So how might a more demand driven vocational training strategy be designed? In formal technical and vocational education it has consistently been shown that private financing - whether coming from firms, users or employer organizations - can contribute to improved definition of training content and curriculum, reducing training costs, and ensuring better entry and integration of trainees in working life. The modality of this participation will be different from country to country, but all countries should give serious consideration to how to best involve the private sector in skills development relevant to the national economy. Another likely component of such a strategy is an emphasis on comprehensive quality secondary education, and how this could contribute to vocational preparation.
A promising alternative pathway of vocational training is the apprenticeship modality. By definition apprenticeship training takes place in active collaboration with the professional world, and the private sector participation and relevance for the labour market is high. This type of training is generally quite cost-effective and flexible. The role of the government in this context is more often one of providing technical support, quality control and grant incentives (financing) rather than as a traditional service provider. There is a challenge in making this non-formal pathway of vocational training an integral part of education systems and a socially acceptable alternative in the regulation of student flows in the formal education system. Increased use of alternative paths of training, including apprenticeship modalities, could usefully be considered as a means of expanding technical training enrolment geared to the labor market. It will be key to consider the role of education systems and governments in expanding apprenticeship programs, especially with regard to providing incentives and financing to support training investments (or partly offsetting costs) of employers and apprentices. With an objective of mass enrolment, this is also a cost-effective alternative to expensive formal TVET with relatively limited enrolment.
d. Higher Education and Research
Since the 1960s higher education (HE) has only played a marginal role in the development debate and it was for a long time considered yet another case of regressive income transfers benefitting elites in developing countries[9]. While the returns to investment in basic education are visible and measurable, the returns to higher education are more elusive and difficult to measure. Combined with the children’s right to education, the notion of high returns to basic education[10] prompted a strong external pressure for, and support to, investments in formal primary education in developing countries at the expense of other levels of educational provision. Recent findings, however, suggest that the social benefits of higher education and research have been underestimated.
There is a growing stock of literature suggesting that HE is critical in shaping the overall capacity of a modern society[11]. It builds the human capital that in turn constitutes the layer of an educated middle class. HE is indispensable to carry out indigenous research that generates knowledge relevant to a country or a region. Its value lies in building domestic capabilities, for which external technical assistance is at best a costly and imperfect substitute. What distinguishes HE across the world is its attention to knowledge generation, to critique, to innovation, and to investments and benefits over a very long term. Those are development necessities, not luxuries, and they need to be nurtured by creating and supporting stable and academically free research environments.
Tertiary enrolment rates in sub-Saharan Africa are the lowest in world[12]. The HE GER in the region grew from just 1 % in 1965 to a meagre 5 % in 2006, which was the level of enrolment achieved by other developing countries in the late 1960s. African universities, however, have witnessed a significant increase in student enrolment in the past two decades. Between 1985 and 2002 the number of tertiary students in sub-Saharan Africa rose from 0.8 million to about 3 million, a number which is in stark contrast to the insignificant enrolment rates in the 1960s and 1970s.
Yet the African shortage of human capital is a serious impediment for the region’s economic development. This shortage is exacerbated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the brain drain from the continent. The brain drain phenomenon has exacerbated the shortage of human capital in Africa. The proportion of students studying abroad compared with those studying at home is 6 %, which makes it the highest in the world. UNCTAD estimates that 30 % of African university trained professionals live outside the region. In the 1990s Africa lost roughly 20.000 professionals to emigration each year. While academic mobility is inevitable and the result of globalisation and the international market for skills, the brain drain phenomenon might also be perceived in a more positive perspective - as a potential contribution to increasing the quality of African scholars. The notion of “brain circulation†for example seeks to capture the perceived benefits of a returning academic diaspora.
There is great diversity in the quality of tertiary education across the region. A few countries like South Africa have world class higher education institutions, while others have barely-functioning university systems. Problems related to HE provision comprise heavy political influence, overcrowding and under-funding. Public budget constraints combined with the relative high costs of tertiary education exacerbated by heavy enrolment pressure has led African governments to accept a significant privatization of HE. While most of the private tertiary institutions were established in the 1990s in response to the inability of public institutions to respond to increasing student demand, by 2005 the proportion of private university provision was one third of the approximately 300 universities in Africa.
While public universities for decades have focused on the production of civil servants from a small elite population, private universities have been accused of specialising in inexpensive fields of study, which are high in demand, but yielding little to overall development. It is noteworthy that agriculture, the productivity of which is vital for improving living standards in almost any poor country, has largely been ignored in Africa.
The challenges facing HE in Africa are staggering. Large scale expansion is happening under severe budget limitations. Privatisation, efficiency measures and cost sharing combined with loan schemes are the most common responses. While the unit costs of producing candidates from various academic fields vary, the available budget provisions almost invariably fall short of demand resulting in inferior quality output. Common responses are prioritisation of some fields of study; diversification of resource mobilisation, and efficiency measures. Quota systems, loan schemes and scholarships have been successfully applied to ensure the equitable provision of HE in order not to exclude meritorious students from disadvantaged groups. African universities are vulnerable to brain drain, but some promising responses include encouraging vibrant local academic environments and promoting scholarly networks at home.
Support to tertiary education in Africa has been largely ignored by donors, partially by reference to the critical needs in basic education but also for reasons of perceived regressive, irrelevant and inefficient HE systems[13]. The question is, whether this negligence has inadvertently delayed the growth and development of Africa? Recalling the above perceived benefits of investments in HE&R donors and governments are well advised to look for a reasonable balance between various levels of education in order to develop sustainable and internally coherent national education systems. In this context, setting strategic goals and managing student flows and transition between educational levels is key in a national development framework and a condition for effective resource allocation within the sector.
2. Equal Access to Education, including Gender Equality
77 million children are out of school, mostly for reasons of poverty. 57 % of these are girls. Two thirds of the world’s illiterates are women. The gender gap is narrowing in many countries but is still significant, especially at post primary levels.
The children most likely to be out of school or drop out live in rural areas and come from the poorest households. On average a child whose mother has no education is twice as likely to be out of school as one whose mother has some education. In addition to rural poverty and parents’ lack of education poor access is often associated with gender, disability, language, ethnic grouping, religion or caste.
Successful inclusive interventions[14] for increased access, retention and completion, not only of girls but of all children, include, among others: the abolition of school fees; incentives such as bursaries and food programs; more female teachers (irrespective of professional training); access to clean and healthy schools, not least to water and sanitation; well managed schools; and, procedures that protect girls from sexual harassment from teachers and fellow male students. The use of mother tongue languages in the classroom using female, and locally recruited, teachers, who are trained in first and second language development is vital in making schools inclusive for disadvantaged groups, especially girls and women. Also, parent participation in schools can increase accountability and discourage corrupt practices, which increase costs for families.
Where large imbalances in access to education exist it is critical to have them mapped and analyzed. It requires the application of critical inquiry to establish the nature of exclusionary practices as well as the presence or establishment of suitable EMIS with indicators relevant to the situation.
The notion of barriers to learning has been useful in addressing the discriminatory and exclusionary practices directed at particular groups according, for example, to their age, gender, ethnicity, or disability because it draws attention to the need to address the specific reasons in particular settings of why some children do not attend school[15]. The most significant inequality in access to education, however, has to do with gender. Barriers to girls’ education[16] include the direct and opportunity costs, which may be prohibitive for large numbers of children from poor households. But distance to school, access to water and sanitation in schools, and the safety of girls are also issues that merit attention.
The benefits from girls’ education are widely acknowledged and well documented[17]. Mothers’ education is considered the strongest determinant of children’s educational achievement, and the education of girls can lead to a sustained increase in the overall education level of a society. Girls’ education is associated with improved literacy, reduced fertility rates and reduced violence against women. But enduring benefits of girls’ education cannot be expected from primary level completion alone. Attention to girls’ post primary education is equally critical.
The general benefits from secondary education relevant to girls include social benefits such as: critical thinking, enabling civic participation and democratic change; reduced likelihood that they will engage in or become victims to crime and youth violence; reduced risk of human trafficking, through increased economic opportunities thus making children less vulnerable. Girls’ secondary education reduces infant mortality, increases childhood immunization and nutrition, reduces children’s stunting, and lowers fertility rates and unwanted pregnancies. Secondary education is correlated to reduced vulnerability to HIV/AIDS because of delayed sexual debut; increased HIV/AIDS prevention knowledge and condom use rates among sexually active. Finally, secondary education produces high returns in terms of wage growth and economic growth.
Large gender gaps can be attributed to sexual harassment of girls; gender biased curricula and teaching methods; a school culture that encourages girls to accept traditional gender roles, and lack of female teachers and role models. The GPI is significantly lower at post primary and higher levels of education. Cultural barriers such as early marriage and stereotype social and economic roles are some of the reasons. Also, conflict and globalization has impacted negatively on girls’ education and women empowerment.
It is often assumed that schools are only positive environments, but there has, so far, been little focus on the role of schools in the possible reinforcement or transformation of stereotype gender roles. Schools both reflect and reinforce inequalities in the larger society and it would be naïve to ignore the ways in which the overall gendered nature of power and authority manifests itself and reproduces gender inequalities at all levels of society.
Because of the gendered nature of power and authority, there is a need to place the MDG 3 gender equality goal in a broader, cross-sectoral perspective[18]. It should be expanded from education to other areas such as legal rights, reproductive health, and freedom from violence. Also, it is important to take a life cycle approach to girls’ education and female equality. Early education is integral for survival, growth and development, and girls benefit particularly from pre-school. More than half a million women die every year from complications in pregnancy or childbirth.
There are several recommendations from international NGOs, multilateral agencies and universities to governments and donors on how to strengthen the MDG3 include upgrading gender equality to the policy level[19]. Gender equality should be given priority in PRSPs and education sector plans and made part of overall performance assessment criteria. In addition, donors could commit to providing funding for the FTI focusing on gender, and support programmes to reduce the opportunity costs for girls, including school feeding programmes and conditional cash transfers.
While the EFA goal reflects a strong commitment to inclusive values, the dominant paradigm in many educational settings is on the opposite, exclusion. More often than not, school teachers spend time and energy on the selection of whom are to get good marks and transferred to the next level instead of trying to get as many pupils as possible get through The consequence of this is the exclusion of large proportions of the EFA target population. Changing this orientation does not easily lend itself to voluntary action, as it is deeply embedded in social and system structures resistant to change.
3. Education in Fragile States and Fragile Situations
Children in fragile states and fragile situations, including countries affected by climate change and natural disasters, have less access to education than other children. An estimated 37 million of the total global number of 72 million out-of-school children live in fragile states and fragile situations. 25 million primary-aged children out of school are concentrated in 18 conflict-affected African states.[20] Many of these countries will not be able to achieve universal primary education by 2015, let alone achieve the benefits from education in terms of economic growth, employment and improved health.
According to the definition of OECD's Development Assistance Committee, states are fragile when state structures lack political will and/or capacity to provide the basic functions needed for poverty reduction and development, and the will to safeguard the security and human rights of their populations. If states do not respond to the needs and expectations of the population, fragility may threaten the legitimacy and authority of the state and increasing tensions between different groups may replace constructive and peaceful political processes.
There is growing acknowledgement of the view that investment in education is likely to play a positive role in reducing conflict and fragility. Further, evidence suggests that in order to achieve turnaround from being a failing state, a country may be helped by having a critical mass of educated people.[21] . Another school of thought claims that investments in fragile states, although justified by need, are potentially wasteful and should instead be directed at those countries that can use it most effectively.
International support to education in fragile states has increased in recent years, but still at a slow pace. The underlying reason for the increased engagement in fragile states is the understanding that they pose high risks not only for the well-being of their population, but also of a global nature, such as conflicts ‘spilling over’ into other countries or resulting in intensified migration or terrorism.
Experience shows that parents respond positively and are eager to send their children to school or learning spaces as soon as the conditions in terms of peace and security are provided. Quick responses are essential so that the children get immediate attention and parents begin to believe in benefits of educating their children.
The challenge is, however, to find effective ways to engage in education activities in fragile states and to define the objectives for such collaborations. The underlying principle of the Paris Declaration that donors can align to coherent and credible Education Sector Plans within the framework of National Development Plans or PRSPs is challenged when working with fragile states. By nature fragile states either do not have the plans or – at best – have interim plans. Consequently, many donors have substantial concerns regarding support to fragile states[22], and are unwilling to take the risks involved in looking for alternative ways of supporting these states.
In this context, bilateral donors should be open to new types of partnerships with the participation of NGOs and UN agencies. Experience shows that harmonised funding mechanisms can be set up and made to work despite institutional differences.
It must be emphasized that when supporting education in fragile states and fragile situations, flexibility is critical. Basically, support should be based on a two-pronged approach: one which addresses the most urgent demands for education of children of primary school age, and the other which supports longer-term development to build up a coherent education system, which will eventually be able to take over the responsibility for the education.
At the international level the need for further development of a global pooled funding mechanism should be considered.[23] The EFA Fast Track Initiative (FTI) has so far only to a limited extent been able to respond to the specific characteristics and needs of fragile states, and could be a means of expanding financing to education in fragile states. The collaboration between several bilateral donors and UNICEF, which is specifically aimed at supporting education in emergency situations, is gradually gaining useful experience.
Notes: