In the words of Nelson Mandela, ‘education is a powerful tool that can be used to change the world’. No truer words were ever said about education. A society that does not prioritize education is planning to be left behind by more progressive people.
Education has been identified as the greatest tool by which Africa can solve its myriad of problems which range from diseases, poverty to insecurity.
Sadly, sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rates of education exclusion on the continent of Africa. 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 a major priority for UNESCO and the UIS. The focus of the UIS is to develop key indicators which would help governments, donors and UN partners better address the deficits in the supply of educational resources such as electricity and potable water.
It also monitors classroom conditions. Such conditions include the factors that enable a conducive learning environment, they include the availability of textbooks to average class sizes and the prevalence of multi-grade classrooms.
What’s more? Seven out of ten sub-Saharan countries face an acute shortage of teachers. This promised the UIS to produce a range of data on teachers’ training, recruitment, and working conditions.
Girl-child education has become 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.
At PMDAfrica, we appreciate the onerous tasks of solving problems. Our continent is in dire need of 21st-century compliant doctors, engineers, educationists, nutritionists, farmers, economists, and so on. We have therefore unveiled an action plan to tackle the menace of education deficit headlong alongside the governments of countries in Africa.
Through our free and subsidized education programs, we aim to get every child educated to a degree level while prioritizing girl-child education.
We are in partnership with other interested parties such as Ministries, Departments, and Agencies of government and the private sector to get basic educational aids to schools across Africa. Our goal is to take get every child to school with the slogan:
Training for the emancipation of Africa.
