From the Africa Progress Report 2012:
'Looking towards 2015, there is an unfortunate air of resignation hanging over much of the region. Many governments and donors appear to view a large shortfall against the MDG targets in education as an inevitable outcome. Indeed, much of the debate surrounding the MDGs in education has moved on to dialogue on the “post-2015” agenda.
Without discounting the importance of this dialogue, the shift in priorities is premature. As many countries across the region have demonstrated, rapid progress towards the 2015 goals is possible. Both Tanzania and Ethiopia reduced out-of-school numbers by over 3 million in the first half of the decade after 2000. The immediate challenge for governments and their development partners is to identify strategies aimed at getting more children into school, reducing dropout rates and improving learning achievement levels.
Some of the barriers to participation in education can be swiftly removed through well-designed policies.
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The more difficult part revolves around teaching. Ultimately, no education system is better than its teachers. With a deficit of around 1 million teachers, Africa urgently needs to step up recruitment. However, far more needs to be done to raise the quality of teaching. Many of Africa’s teachers enter classrooms with limited subject knowledge. One survey found that fewer than half of grade 6 teachers in Mozambique, Uganda and Malawi were able to score at the top of the competency level for the pupils. Teaching is typically delivered in rote fashion, reflecting training systems that regard “child-centred learning” as an alien concept. In-service support systems are weak. And whether as a result of low morale, poor pay or a lack of accountability, Africa’s schools are plagued by an epidemic of teacher absenteeism.'Check out the Report for more on what more can be done for education across various different African countries.
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