Education in Africa - Participation

Participation

According to UNESCO's Regional overview on sub-Saharan Africa, in 2000 52% of children were enrolled in primary schools, the lowest enrollment rate of any region. UNESCO also reported marked gender inequalities: In most parts of Africa there is much higher enrollment by boys; in some there are more girls, due to sons having to stay home and tend to the family farm. Africa has more than 40 million children, almost half the school-age child population, receiving no schooling. Two-thirds of these are girls. The USAID Center reports that as of 2005, 40% of school-age children in Africa do not attend primary school and there are still 46 million school-age African children who have never stepped into a classroom.

The regional report produced by the UNESCO-BREDA education sector analyst team in 2005 indicates that less than 10% of African children are now allowed in the system. Four out of 10 children did not complete primary school in 2002/2003. So, five years after the World Education Forum and the adoption of the Millennium Goals, progress at primary level is far from decisive. The analysis highlights that principal efforts should be directed to reducing the number of dropouts per level. It appears also that geographical disparities (rural areas/urban areas) or economic disparities (low income households/wealthy households) are more significant and take longer to even out than gender disparities. From the quality point of view, studies such as SACMEQ (Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality) and household surveys indicate very significant disparities in performance between and within countries.

This report also shows that secondary (lower and higher levels) and higher education enrollments have progressed proportionally more than primary enrollment over the period 1990–2002/2003 which questions the reality of policy priority given to primary education. The strong pressure for education continuity from the majority already benefiting from schooling explains this trend. To this must be added the weakness of mechanisms regulating pupil flow between the different levels of the education system.

In 2005, the inventory and trends show a definitive risk of not reaching universal primary enrollment by 2015. 14.7% of the world's population is in Africa.

The education systems inherited from the colonial powers were designed for the formal sector and public administration. However, ADEA (Association for the Development of Education in Africa) has become aware of the informal sector's relevance in developing countries, and thus recognized the need for increased vocational school training as a way to help the informal sector.