Education in Africa

Overview of education in Africa

Although the quality of education and the quantity of well equipped schools and teachers has steadily increased since the onset of the colonial period, there are still numerous inequalities evident in the existing educational systems based on region, economic status, and gender.

This entry includes a definition of literacy and UNESCO's percentage estimates for populations aged 15 years and over, including total population, males, and females. Countries Total population Male Female Year 81.4% 87.4% 75.3% 2018 71.1% 82% 60.7% 2015 45.8% 56.9% 35% 2021 88.5% 88% 88.9% 2015 46% 54.5% 37.8% 2021 74.7% 81.3% 68.4% 2021 90.8% 94.2% 87.4% 2021 77.1% 82.6% 71.6% 2018 37.4% 49.5% 25.8% 2018 26.8% 35.4% 18.2% 2021 62% 67% 56.9% 2021 80% 89.5% 70.8% 2021 80.6% 85.9% 75.4% 2021 89.9% 93.1% 86.7% 2019 73.1% 78.8% 67.4% 2021 95.3% 97.4% 93% 2015 76.6% 84.4% 68.9% 2018 88.4% 88.3% 88.5% 2018 51.8% 57.2% 44.4% 2017 85.5% 86.2% 84.7% 2021 58.1% 65.2% 51.2% 2021 79% 83.5% 74.5% 2018 45.3% 61.2% 31.3% 2021 52.9% 67% 39.9% 2021 82.6% 85.5% 79.8% 2021 81% 72.9% 88.8% 2021 48.3% 62.7% 34.1% 2017 91% 96.7% 85.6% 2015 77.3% 78.8% 75.8% 2021 67.3% 71.2% 63.7% 2021 35.5% 46.2% 25.7% 2018 67% 71.8% 62.2% 2021 92.2% 93.5% 90.5% 2021 75.9% 84.8% 67.4% 2021 63.4% 74.1% 53.8% 2021 92.3% 90.6% 92.3% 2021 35.1% 43.6% 26.7% 2018 62% 71.3% 52.7% 2018 75.9% 78.7% 73.3% 2021 94.8% 96.5% 91.1% 2021 56.3% 68.4% 45.4% 2021 95.9% 95.4% 96.4% 2018 47.7% 55.3% 39.8% 2021 95% 95.5% 94.5% 2019 34.5% 40.3% 28.9% 2018 60.7% 65.4% 56.1% 2018 81.8% 85.5% 78.2% 2021 66.5% 80% 55.1% 2019 82.7% 89.1% 82.7% 2021 79% 84% 74.3% 2021 86.7% 90.6% 83.1% 2018 89.7% 88.3% 89.7% 2021

Precolonial Africa was made up of ethnic groups and states that embarked on migrations depending on seasons, availability of fertile soil, and political circumstances. Therefore, power was decentralized among several states in precolonial Africa (many people held some form of authority as such power was not concentrated in a particular person or an institution). Usually, a person's entitlement to land (which was mostly given patriarchally) gives the person some form of power within the person's household and or within the person's ethnic group. There was, therefore, no need for a formally organized education in certain pre colonial African states, as members of each household learned their skills, values, responsibilities, socialization and norms of their community or household by observing and assisting older household members or community members. Education in many precolonial African states was in the form of apprenticeship, which was a form of informal education, where children and or younger members of each household mostly learned from older members of their household, and community. In most cases, each household member learned more than one skills in addition to learning the values, socialization, and norms of the community/tribe/household. Story telling also played a significant role in education during pre colonial Africa. Parents, other older members of households, and Griots used oral story telling to teach children about the history, norms and values of their state, household and community. This ritual was used to teach young girls, usually, adolescents about cooking, motherhood, and other necessary womanhood skills and values before they marry (engage in sexually related activities). In fact, one of the first forms of higher education in Africa were the School of Holy Scriptures built in Ethiopia and Al Azhar which was in Egypt. These schools became cultural and academic centers as many people traveled from all over the globe for knowledge and instruction. Well before contact with external cultures, Africans had developed pools of understanding and educational tools.

The onset of the colonial period in the 19th century marked the beginning of the end for traditional African education as the primary method of instruction. European military forces, missionaries, and colonists all came ready and willing to change existing traditions to meet their own needs and ambitions. Colonial powers such as Spain, Portugal, Belgium and France colonized the continent without putting in a system of education. Because the primary focus of colonization was reaping benefits from commercial colonial economies, cash crop production, extraction of raw materials, other physically laborious tasks were prioritized. These economies did not expand to require jobs of a higher skill set or more labor, therefore intensive labor that required little skill was high in demand. Because of such circumstances, there was little demand to educate or train the colonized populations. Furthermore, colonial powers were unwilling to offer education to those they colonized unless it benefited them. Either colonial powers did not view investing in African education as a practical use of their revenue or they refrained from educating Africans in order to avoid any uprisings. Those in positions of authority were in fear of access to widespread access to higher education specifically. Colonial powers often found themselves in a debate whether or not to educate their colonized populations and if so, to what extent. Specifically, the British Education Committee of the Privy Council advocated for vocational education and training rather than one focused on academia. This vocational training however neglected professions such as engineering, technology, or similar subjects. Instead, the vocational training had a dominant racial overtone that stressed African training for skills fitting with their assumed social and mental inadequacy. Notably, the Belgians under Leopold II prohibited access to higher education in their colonies, whilst other colonial powers put in barriers in infrastructure or access such as limiting language of instruction to the language of the colonizer, limits on teaching curriculums, and ensuring the curriculum did not reflect any Afro ethnicity. By demanding that communities create physical schools with strict curriculum, the foreign powers were able to dictate what the people learned, adjusting it to further their agenda. This not only forced new form and content to education, but abandoned the knowledge gained from the largely informal education. With less community awareness, efficiency in learning skills, and especially understanding of the past, African communities began to dwindle in education and prosperity. Aspects of colonialism and its tumultuous effects on the ethos of education are still prevalent in African countries that still struggle to escape the effects of colonization today. However, a 2021 study found that colonial education systems may also have had some positive effects on education levels in Africa, namely on numeracy. The increase of numeracy in Africa had been accelerating since the 1830s, but it picked up speed during the late 19th and the first two decades of the 20th century. This suggests that colonial education was a determining factor for better education. This positive relationship might have existed due to the effort to spread European schooling among native populations to legitimize colonial power, since this accelerated the organization of schools. At the same time, demand for European prompted education was rising because the colonial economy brought about new export opportunities, which African farmers responded to. Between the 1950s and 1990s, African countries finally regained their independence. With this recovered freedom, they began to rebuild their traditional forms of education. What had inevitably evolved, however, was a hybrid of the two models. With the collaboration of donor agencies and Western demand, pushes for development of African education and the building of human capital dominated global conversation. Namely, the 1960s were known as the First Development Decade by the UN. Policymakers prioritized secondary and tertiary education before also setting their sights for universal primary education around 1980. This set the precedent for educational planning. Although children and adults may learn from their families and community, a sense of individuality has also developed that today both drives ingenuity and creates separation between groups and cultural tradition. African education programs have developed that involve both groups; an HIV/AIDS awareness program, for example, may involve members coming into communities and sharing their knowledge. Although this is a direct, cognitive approach, they also try to involve all members of the community, allowing for the creation of ownership and cultural acceptance.

The use of education as a tool of colonization was widespread throughout the French Colonial Empire. Hubert Lyautey, the first Resident General of French Morocco, advocated for the facilitation of ruling and conquest through cooperation with native elites. To facilitate the relationship with this "bourgeois" class of francophone Africans, selective educational institutions were established across the French Empire. The teaching of the French language in Moroccan institutions of higher education, such as the University of Fez, was intended to "promote economic development and political compliance without assimilating or deracinating the students or preparing them for political agency". This system allowed colonial authorities to educate a class of native Moroccans that could carry out administrative roles and functions. In his book, French Colonial Education and the Making of the Francophone African Bourgeoisie, Program Chair of Africana Studies at Washington and Lee University, Mohamed Kamara writes, "For the kind of society the colonialist had in mind, he must create and nurture an elite that will assist for as long as possible in the administration and exploitation of its vast overseas territories". In classrooms, students were given a predetermined curriculum. The basic goal of this classroom practice was to provide only a limited selection of information for students, leaving very little margin for questioning or critical thinking. Only a limited number of families were permitted to send their children to school, which fit with the underlying goal of creating an exclusive class of native born Moroccans, who would serve as a sort of liaison between white colonial officials and the masses. As the demand for English speaking Africans increased, mission schools provided training in the form of teaching of the Bible. As time went on, however, British industrialists began to complain about the lack of skilled labor, and as such, the British Government supplied mission schools with grants for the vocational training of Africans in various trades critical to British industrial efforts. British colonial education in Africa during the Interwar Period can be characterized by a push for uniformity, despite colonial authorities demonstrating their acute awareness of the notable differences between the different regions of the Empire. Critical to this, as well, was the universal recognition of nationality as a basic human right under the Covenant of the League of Nations. Colonies were, as outlined by the League of Nations, to be eventually granted independence, with the European powers entrusted as the stewards of "civilization" for their respective colonies. Colonies were only to be allowed independence once they could demonstrate their capacity for self rule. In former Governor General of Nigeria (1914–1919), Lord Lugard's, 1922 book, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa writes,

" do not enter the tropics on sufferance, or employ their technical skill, their energy, and their capital as 'interlopers' or as 'greedy capitalists', but in the fulfillment of the Mandate of civilization". That same year, the World Education Forum met in Dakar, Senegal, and adopted the Dakar Framework for Action reaffirming the commitment to achieving Education for All by the year 2015. At the time, according to UNESCO, only 57% of African children were enrolled in primary schools, the lowest enrollment rate of any region surveyed. The report also showed marked gender inequalities: in almost all countries enrollment of boys far outpaced that of girls. However, in some countries, education is relatively strong. In Zimbabwe, literacy has reached 92%. Steps such as the abolition of school fees, investments in teaching infrastructure and resources, and school meals from the World Food Programme helped drive enrollment up by millions. Yet despite the significant progress of many countries, the world fell short of meeting its goal of Universal Primary Education (UPE). In sub Saharan Africa as of 2013, only about 79% of primary school age children were enrolled in school. 59 million children of primary school age were out of school, and enrollment of girls continued to lag behind that of boys. Disparity between genders is partially due to females being excluded from school for being pregnant. Following the expiration of the MDGs in 2015, the UN adopted a set of Sustainable Development Goals for the year 2030. The fourth goal addressed education, with the stated aim to "ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all." Although UNESCO have recommended since the 1950s that children be taught early literacy in their mother tongue, progressing later to other languages, not all African countries implement this effectively. Even where the earliest grades are taught in the mother tongue, pupils are typically forced to switch to languages such as English and French before acquiring proficiency in these languages.

Another reason for the low education rates in Africa is the lack of proper schooling facilities and unequal opportunities for education across countries. Many schools across Africa find it hard to employ teachers due to the low pay and lack of suitable people. This is particularly true for schools in remote areas. Most people who manage to receive education would prefer to move to big cities or even overseas where more opportunities and higher pay await. Thus, there will be an overly large class sizes and a high average number of students per teacher in a school. Moreover, the teachers are usually those unqualified with few teaching aids and/or textbook provision. Due to this, children attending schools in rural areas usually attain poorer results in standardised tests compared to their urban counterparts. This can be seen in the reports given by the Northern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ). Those taking the tests in rural areas score much lower than those in small towns and big cities. This shows a lack of equal education opportunity given to children from different parts of the same country. With teachers being less qualified than others in urban areas the teaching to learning environment takes an effect amongst the students. In one instance teachers took the same test as their students and three fourths of them had failed. In addition, those that do not receive the same education to those in the bigger cities have trouble even after graduation with reading, writing, and doing math. Students who do not attain the same equal education to those in urban environments do not achieve the same outcome in establishing success with a career. With education being a major concern towards achieving a career and establishing a future, Africa needs to be aware that equal education needs to be established within all schools throughout the countries.

Emigration has led to a loss of highly educated people and financial loss. The loss of skilled people can only be replaced with another huge cost which imply the loss of money spent educating people who leave and new people to replace them. Even though an almost 5.5% of GDP investment in education, the loss makes it difficult for the government to budget another amount in education as they will need to prioritize other needs such as military budget and debt servicing.

Western models and standards still continue to dominate African education. Because of colonization African institutions, particularly universities, still instruct using Euro centric curriculums with almost no connection to life in Africa. This is further perpetuated by the use of European and American imported textbooks. Many view this lack of self sufficiency as an ongoing effect of colonization upheld by the modern, corrupt African elite. This attitude rests on the basis that during colonization the African ruling elite exploited their own people for their own benefit rather than advocate for the interests of their own people.

The global water crisis has severe effects on education in rural countries in Africa. Limited access to education and health issues can be further compounded by inadequate water systems or disease that may follow. Malaria, cited to be a main cause of death in Africa, is a mosquito borne disease that can commonly be found in unmanaged pools of still water. The mosquitos breed in such pools and consequently, children who drink from these pools can die or fall severely ill. Furthermore, such an intense illness can later affect the cognitive abilities of children who fall ill at a young age. This is not only applicable biologically but also as an effect of falling ill: children who miss a significant amount of school are unable to optimize their education due to missing lessons.

Military spending is causing education spending to decrease immensely. According to a March 2011 report by UNESCO, armed conflict is the biggest threat to education in Africa. While the number of dropouts across the continent has been increasing dramatically, one of the influences of war and conflict on education is the diversion of public funds from education to military spending. An already underfunded system is losing more money. Twenty one African countries have been identified as the highest spenders of gross domestic product on military globally compared with the amount directed toward education. Military and conflict also leads to the displacement of children. It often forces them to remain in camps or flee to their neighboring countries where education is not available the world is going to explode to them.

NEPAD's E school programme is an ambitious plan to provide internet and computer facilities to all schools on the continent. SACMEQ is a consortium of 15 Ministries of Education in Southern and Eastern Africa that undertakes integrated research and training activities to monitor and evaluate the quality of basic education, and generates information that can be used by decision makers to plan and improve the quality of education. For 10 years, the Benin Education Fund (BEF) has provided scholarships and education support to students from the Atakora province in northeastern Benin. Over 450 students have been able to stay in school because of their programmes.

A 2010 Transparency International report, with research gathered from 8,500 educators and parents in Ghana, Madagascar, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Uganda, found that education is being denied to African children in incredibly large numbers. A lack of parent involvement, especially as an overseer of government activities also leads to enormous corruption. This was most often found to be because parents and communities feel as though they lack any kind of power in regard to their child's education. In Uganda only 50% of parents believe that they have the power to influence decisions regarding the education of their child. In Morocco, just 20% of parents believed they held any sort of power.

A report by USAID and the Bureau for Africa, Office of Sustainable Development, found that non governmental organizations (NGOs) are increasingly participating in contribute to the delivery of education services, education policy decisions and are included by donors and government officials in many parts of the education system. Of course, this varies from country to country and region to region. NGOs working in education in Africa often encountered tension and competition when working. Schools, parents and, most often government officials, feel threatened by third party involvement and feel that they are "crashing the party." The report continues that for NGOs to be effective, they must understand that they do not have the same perspective as government officials as to who is in control. If they do not recognize the government of the country they are working in, they will compromise their objectives. The report goes into more detail about NGO relations with governments in education. The relationship is viewed from completely separate points. African governments see NGOs and their work as "an affair of government" or, in other words, working as a part and in collaboration with the country's government. NGOs on the other hand view themselves as very separate entities in African education. They see themselves fulfilling moral responsibility. They believe that they are identifying needs or areas of development in situations under which the government has ultimately been unaccountable and separately mobilizing resources toward those needs or development areas. Government and NGOs may hold contrasting beliefs about each other's abilities. Governments often think NGOs are unqualified to make important policy decisions and that they could undermine their legitimacy if seen as superior. In some cases, NGOs have found government incompetent themselves, if not their own fault, as the fault of a lack of resources. In the best cases, NGOs and government officials find each other's mutual strengths in education policy and find ways to practically collaborate and reach both of their objectives. Funding is inadequate and inconsistent and is needed for priority areas such as educator training, monitoring, and evaluation. There is a clear need for investment in capacity development, having a full, sufficiently paid and well qualified professionalized staff, and increasing the demands for adult education professionals. The majority of adult educators are untrained, especially in basic literacy. Governments often employ school teachers and others in adult education posts rather than experienced adult educators. The best reported data on funding is about adult literacy and non formal education programs. Funding for continuing education, either academic or vocational is provided and reported on, but little data is given on its financing. Funding may come from public or private sector sources. International and foreign aid is also likely to be important. The costs of much adult education seem to be kept artificially low by the use of state facilities and by the extremely low salaries paid to many adult education specialists. Public universities have not been successful in attracting older students onto mainstream degree programs and so the post apartheid ideal of opening access to public higher education for growing numbers of non traditional students is not yet a reality. However, certain countries have reported some success rates in Adult Education programs. Between 1990 and 2007 Uganda enrolled over 2million participants in the functional adult literacy program. The Family Basic Education program was active in 18 schools by 2005, reaching over 3,300 children and 1,400 parents. This is a successful family literacy mediation whose impact at household, school and community level has been evaluated. Unfortunately, the national reports typically do not provide sufficient information on the content of the adult education programs that run in their countries. In the majority of cases, the name of the program is as much detail as is given. Curriculum content does not seem to be a major issue.

African communities are very close knit; activities, lifestyles, particularities of individuals are nearly always common knowledge. Because of this, it is difficult for any one member or group within an area to take a significantly different approach to any facet of life within the community. For this reason, program planners for adult learners in Africa find higher rates of success when they employ a participatory approach. Through open and honest dialogue about the fears, motivations, beliefs and ambitions of the community as a whole, there is less social strain concerning individual divergent behavior. In addition to strong traditional beliefs, years of slavery through colonization have led to a sense of unity and common struggle in African communities. Therefore, lesson plans in these areas should reflect this cultural sensibility; collaboration and cooperation are key components of successful programs. Teaching techniques that utilize these ideas may include story telling, experiential simulation, and the practice of indigenous traditions with slight modifications. Every program and lesson must be tailored to the particular community because they almost always learn, live, and achieve as a group or not at all. Informal education plays a strong role within indigenous learning in African communities. This poses a significant challenge to western style program planners that emphasize formal learning within a designated time frame and setting. These requirements must often be abandoned in order to achieve success in communities that have no strong affinity for time and formal education. Programs must be planned that become ingrained into the daily life of participants, that reflects their values and add positive functionality to their lives. Successful programs often involve more long term learning arrangements consisting of regular visits and the free, unforced exchange of information.

African philosophy of adult education recognizes the western ideas such as liberalism, progressivism, humanism and behaviorism, while complementing them with native African perspectives. Ethnophilosophy is the idea that the main purpose of adult education is to enable social harmony at all levels of society, from immediate family to community and country. It is of primary importance to ensure the retention of knowledge passed down from one generation to another concerning values, cultural understanding and beliefs. This philosophy promotes active learning – learning by doing, following, practicing the work of the elders. Particular lessons may be taught through activities such as role play, practical demonstrations, exhibitions, discussions or competitions. The nationalist ideological philosophy separates itself from ethnophilosophy in that it less concerned with the methods of learning and more with its use. As a philosophy born of the revolutionary movements of the 1950s, it is unsurprising that its main focus is to be able to apply knowledge to active participation in politics and civil society. Although it is important in this philosophy to retain the communal nature of traditional African society, functionalism for social understanding and change takes prime importance in its implementation. Professional philosophy represents the strongest bridge between western and traditional African educational systems. It promotes a hybrid approach to adult programs, allowing for a wide range of learning techniques, even purely cognitive lecture, so long as community values are accounted for within the lesson. Finally, philosophic sagacity suggests that the only true African philosophies are those that have developed with no contact with the West whatsoever. Rather than a specific approach, this idea simply notes the huge range of educational techniques that may exist throughout the continent by a wide variety of people. It essentially states that there is no one correct method, and that the subject and activities should always be set by the participants.

In 2000, 93.4 million women in Sub Saharan Africa were illiterate. Many reasons exist for why formal education for females is unavailable to so many, including cultural reasons. For example, some believe that a woman's education will get in the way of her duties as a wife and a mother. In some places in Africa where women marry at age 12 or 13, education is considered a hindrance to a young woman's development. A positive correlation exists between the enrollment of girls in primary school and the gross national product and increase of life expectancy. However, women's education in Africa has sometimes been dotted with instances of sexual violence. Sexual violence against girls and female students affects many African education systems. In Sub Saharan Africa, sexual violence is one of the most common and least known forms of corruption. UNESCO is supporting adult education especially women education in Africa. some schools in Africa like loveth international schools is first of all helping girls who have no support to go to school to come to his boarding schools. Malawi is also improving the education of poor young girls in the country. those that lost their parents in the HIV disease.

While most of the Millennium Development Goals face a deadline of 2015, the gender parity target was set to be achieved a full ten years earlier – an acknowledgment that equal access to education is the foundation for all other development goals. Gender disparity is defined as inequalities of some quantity attributed to the reason of gender type. In countries where resources and school facilities are lacking, and total enrollments are low, a choice must often be made in families between sending a girl or a boy to school. Of an estimated 101 million children not in school, more than half are girls. However, this statistic increased when examining secondary school education. The foremost factor limiting female education is poverty. Economic poverty plays a key role when it comes to coping with direct costs such as tuition fees, cost of textbooks, uniforms, transportation and other expenses. It is common for girls to be taken out of school at this point. Boys however, may be given more time to study if their parents believe that education will allow them to earn more in the future. Expectations, attitudes and biases in communities and families, economic costs, social traditions, and religious and cultural beliefs limit girls' educational opportunities. Because of these traditional gender labor roles, women are forced to spend around 60% of each day collecting water, which translates to approximately 200 million collective work hours by women globally per day and a decrease in the amount of time available for education, shown by the correlation of decrease in access to water with a decrease in combined primary, secondary, and tertiary enrollment of women. Whatever the underlying reason(s) are, about having large numbers of girls outside the formal schooling system brings developmental challenges to both current and future generations. According to the UNESCO, the rates of female children out of primary school is higher than that of male children in all the African countries where data is available. Until equal numbers of girls and boys are in school, it will be impossible to build the knowledge necessary to eradicate poverty and hunger, combat disease and ensure environmental sustainability. The target associated with achieving this goal is to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary enrollment preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015. Women deserve the instrumental effects of gender equality in education and the intrinsic dimension of female education; which in essence derives from the role of education in enhancing a woman's set of capabilities. Thus, in theory, there is a direct effect from female education to income (or growth). In Africa, limited education and employment opportunities for women reduce annual per capita growth by 0.8%. Had this growth taken place, Africa's economies would have doubled over the past 30 years. It is estimated that some low income countries in Africa would need up to $23.8 billion annually to achieve the Millennium Development Goal focused on promoting gender equality and empowering women by 2015. This would translate from $7 to $13 per capita per year from 2006 to 2015, according to OECD DAC. New analysis by the Global Campaign for Education suggests that if all children received a complete primary education, the economic impact of HIV/AIDS could be greatly reduced and around 700,000 cases of HIV in young adults could be prevented each year—seven million in a decade. Second, is access to the same curricula, the same examinations, teaching staff with qualifications of the same standard and school premises and equipment of the same quality. Ranging from teachers to prime ministers, academics to policymakers, non governmental bodies to the heads of major international organizations, they adopted the Dakar Framework for Action, Education for All: Meeting Our Collective Commitments. The goal is education for all as laid out by the World Conference on Education for All and other international conferences. Between 1990 and 1998 the net enrollment of boys increased by 9% to 56%, and of girls by 7% to 48% in sub Saharan Africa. FAWE believes it is vital to invest in research in Africa as a way to produce current information for advocacy in education policy. This three year research initiative aims to work collaboratively with established research institutions to produce pertinent and robust research, carried out by Alain Mingat, Blandine Ledoux and Ramahatra Rakotomalala sought to anticipate the pressures that would be brought to bear on post primary teaching. The study puts it this way: "In the reference year (2005), our sample of 33 countries in sub Saharan Africa had 14.9 million pupils enrolled in the first year of secondary school. If the rate of completion of the primary stage reaches 95% by 2020 with levels of transition from primary to the first year of secondary maintained at their current level in each country, the first year of secondary school would have 37.2 million pupils in 2020, or 2.5 times the current number. If all the pupils finishing primary school could continue with their education, the number of pupils in the first year of secondary school would reach 62.9 million by 2020, a multiplication by 4.2 over the period." Behind the regional averages, there are still enormous disparities between the countries, and even between the different zones and regions within countries, which means that it is not possible to "[ ] identify conditions that apply uniformly to education across the different countries of sub Saharan Africa." The gap in terms of the proportion of those excluded from the first year of middle school is even wider, with 6% in Gabon compared to 68% in Burkina Faso and 73% in Niger. Conflicts also affect the rate of literacy of the population. At the global level, the rate of literacy among adults in countries touched by conflict was 69% in 2010 compared to 85% in peaceful countries. Twenty states in sub Saharan Africa have been touched by conflict since 1999. The teacher training systems are generally not able to meet the quantitative and qualitative needs of training. In Chad, for example, only 35.5% of teachers are certified to teach. From 2017 to 2020, these school meal programs expanded in a majority of African countries.

Educational technology in sub Saharan Africa refers to the promotion, development and use of information and communication technologies (ICT), m learning, media, and other technological tools to improve aspects of education in sub Saharan Africa. Since the 1960s, various information and communication technologies have aroused strong interest in sub Saharan Africa as a way of increasing access to education, and enhancing its quality and fairness. The development of individual computer technology has proved a major turning point in the implementation of projects dependent on technology use, and calls for the acquisition of computer skills first by teachers and then by pupils. Between 1990 and 2000, multiple actions were started in order to turn technologies into a lever for improving education in sub Saharan Africa. Many initiatives focused on equipping schools with computer hardware. A number of NGOs contributed, on varying scales, to bringing computer hardware into Africa, such as groups like Computer Aid International, Digital Links, SchoolNet Africa and World Computer Exchange. Sometimes with backing from cooperation agencies or development agencies like USAID, the African Bank or the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, these individual initiatives grew without adequate coordination. States found it difficult to define their national strategies with regard to ICT in Education. Launched in 2008, the BBC Janala programme, offering English courses in a combination of different media, including lessons of a few minutes via mobile phone, received more than 85,000 calls per day in the weeks following the launch of the service. In 15 months, over 10 million calls (paid, but at a reduced price compared to a normal communication) were made, by over 3 million users. The main initiatives based on the use of ICT and the Internet in education originally focused on distance learning at university level. Thus, the African Virtual University (AVU), set up by the World Bank in 1997, was originally conceived as an alternative to traditional teaching. When it became an intergovernmental agency in 2003, it was training 40,000 people, mostly on short programmes. It shifted its focus to teacher training and to integrating technology into higher education. The AVU has ten e learning centres. The Agence universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF) has also, since 1999, set up around forty French speaking digital campuses, more than half of them in Africa. In these infrastructures, dedicated to technology and set up within the universities, the AUF offers access to over 80 first and master's degrees entirely by distance learning, about 30 of which are awarded by African institutions and created with its support. More recently, the MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) phenomenon has grown up, first in the United States and then in Europe. Adoption of a system of easily identifiable and comparable degrees. Adoption of a system based on undergraduate and graduate degree cycles. Promotion of student and faculty mobility. Training and student opportunities should be accessible to students. All educational faculty such as administrative staff, professors, and researchers should have access to services relevant to their fields of study.