This is the 41st  post in a blog series to be published in 2021 by the Secretariat on behalf of the AU High-Level Panel on Emerging Technologies (APET) and the Calestous Juma Executive Dialogues (CJED)

 

Figure 1: Africa’s Agenda for Children: Fostering an Africa Fit for Children

The African continent aspires to accomplish the African Union's (AU) Agenda 2063 "Africa We Want", which encapsulates Africa's aspirations for the future. The AU's Agenda 2063 is a long-term strategy that appreciates the continent's youthful population as the most[1] important drivers of the strategy. However, for African youth to fully participate in realising Agenda 2063, their human rights should be fully protected. This is confirmed within the AU Agenda 2063 (Paragraph 53), which states that; "African children shall be empowered through the full implementation of the African Charter on the Rights of the Child[2]." This is also echoed in the framework "Africa's Agenda for Children 2040: Fostering an Africa Fit for Children", which stipulates that by nurturing and nourishing children on the continent, the present generation of Africans will promote the growth of the continent and secure its future. Furthermore, the African Charter on the rights of the child recognises African education for all children as one of their fundamental rights in developing African youth's potential.

Several African countries have made tremendous progress in ensuring that rights to education for the youth are realised across the African continent. For example, reports have demonstrated that primary school enrolment rates in Sub-Saharan Africa have increased from 52% in 1990 to 78% in 2012.[3] In addition, African governments have further reaffirmed their commitment to enhancing education access for all on the continent by 2025 through the Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA 2016-2025).

Despite the strides that have been realised across the African continent in education, the educational infrastructure and curriculum have barely catered for children with disabilities. It has been estimated that 98% of children with disabilities in Africa have not received formal education. Furthermore, 90% of children with disabilities across the African continent have not accessed any form of education in their lives.[4] Generally, the exclusion of children with disabilities from the educational system carries significant adverse economic impacts on African families, communities, and national levels. This is because the schooling exclusion experienced by children with disabilities has impeded their financial independence as adults in the long run. Regrettably, among children with disabilities, girls have experienced even more marginalisation and exclusion from schools and universities.

The main forms of disabilities across the African continent include vision impairment, deafness and hardness of hearing, mental health conditions, intellectual disability, acquired brain injury, autism spectrum disorder, albinism, and physical disability. Causes of disabilities include heredity, congenital disabilities and lack of care during pregnancy and childbirth (because of lack of coverage or ignorance), insalubrious housing, natural disasters, illiteracy, and the resulting lack of information on available health services. It can also be poor sanitation and hygiene, congenital diseases, malnutrition, traffic accidents, work-related accidents and illnesses, sports accidents, cardiovascular disease, mental and nervous disorders, the use of certain chemicals, and change of diet and lifestyle.[5] Other causes include marriage between close relatives, home accidents, respiratory diseases, metabolic diseases such as diabetes, kidney failure, as well as drugs, alcohol, smoking, high blood pressure, old age, Chagas' disease, poliomyelitis, and measles, among others.[6]

Most children with disabilities in Africa drop out of school due to several reasons. Notably, most African schools are inadequately equipped with infrastructure and a teaching workforce that can provide a conducive teaching and learning environment for children with disabilities. In addition, the curricula and teaching pedagogy of most African schools' systems remain with limited teaching strategies that are suitable for pupils with disabilities. Consequently, these children barely receive proper and meaningful access to the subject matter content. This divide is further exacerbated by the fact that teachers that are teaching in schools focusing on children with disabilities receive inadequate remuneration incentives when compared to their counterparts in regular schools. Fundamentally, the teaching profession focusing on children with disabilities is continually being discriminated against and stigmatised by public attitudes.[7]

Figure 2: Overview of the rights to education for children with disabilities globally

To address the education divide that exists between children with and without disabilities, the African Union Panel on Emerging Technologies (APET) is calling for African countries to consider investing more in assistive and digital emerging technologies so to address challenges affecting children with disabilities. Such interventions can enable these children to attain quality education.[8] This is because APET believes that these technologies will not only enable the African countries to enhance quality education accessibility to African children with disabilities adequately but also encourage financial independence. Notably, APET recognises that the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted the education system across the African continent. The children with disabilities who were already profoundly marginalised were the most negatively impacted by the pandemic and further excluded from schools. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has also presented significant opportunities for African countries to recalibrate and rethink accessible and inclusive education.

African schools, colleges, and universities have been progressively leveraging digital technologies such as e-learning technologies that include Blackboard, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom, among others. In some cases, these institutions have been utilising Television and Radio to deliver education across the African continent. Therefore, APET is encouraging such technologies for teaching and learning for children with disabilities. For example, digital technologies can be harnessed for students who cannot walk to schools. To this end, digital and audio libraries technologies are progressively gaining applications within some African schools and universities. In addition, students with intellectual, hearing, and reading disabilities, as well as impaired sight, dyslexia and albinism, can access educational courses via digital and audio libraries enabled by internet-based technologies.[9] As such, APET encourages these technologies be replicated to primary school because this is the level that has observed most children with disabilities dropping out.

Figure 3: 3D-printed and robotic prosthetic limbs in Africa. - SOURCE:  https://www.ajtmh.org/view/journals/tpmd/102/4/article-p905.xml

Apart from digital technologies, APET also urges African countries to adopt assistive technologies to ensure that children with disabilities can adequately compete in education. These assistive technologies are pieces of equipment and products that can be modified and customised to enhance, maintain, and improve the functional capabilities of children with disabilities.[10] The technologies include prosthetics, brail computers and tablets, hearing aids, spectacles, white canes, and adaptive eating utensils. These assistive technologies can assist children with mental disabilities, autism, blindness, intellectual disability as well as autism. However, the World Health Organization has reported that access to these assistive technologies and services remains limited in Africa.[11] This is because only 25% of disabled people have access to assistive technologies in Africa.[12] Therefore, APET is encouraging African countries to utilise 3-D printing to enhance the manufacturing of these assistive technologies. Such efforts and interventions will significantly enhance access to these technologies across the African continent.

For example, innovative 3D-printed and robotic prosthetic limbs can provide amputees with inexpensive and superior alternative options compared to conventional prostheses. This is because only a limited fraction of amputees from African countries have access to suitable prosthetic services. For instance, reports have shown approximately 16 million amputees in Africa, making up 24.6% of global amputees, in 2017.[13] It was further envisaged that these numbers were likely to surge due to a rise in illnesses and diseases.[14]

The Nigerian Technology Lovers Launch 3D Laboratory for Victims of Violence have addressed this challenge. The North-Eastern Humanitarian and Innovation Laboratory, in partnership with the Nigerian government, has launched a technology Hub in 2018 to print limbs and incorporated the robotics technology to improve limb functionality.[15] Notably, the 3D printed limbs are significantly cost-effective than the conventionally manufactured prostheses. As such, the North-Eastern Humanitarian and Innovation Laboratory project has demonstrated how government investment into local volunteer groups and local communities can significantly improve the livelihoods of those in need. It can also improve job and wealth creation prospects for the local entrepreneurs.

In 2017, a South African based Robotic Prosthetics Company, a start-up company from South Africa's University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, created the world's most advanced cost-effective "Touch Hand" prosthetic hand.[16] Interestingly, this new prosthetic hand affords unique sensory feedback so that users can pick up delicate and irregular objects using basic "claws." Unfortunately, robotic hands such as the "Touch Hand" are 10 times more expensive. The company is also developing simple and affordable upgrades for amputees through the South African government business support. However, for increased adoption of such university-based projects, African governments should provide augmented capital and marketing support to enable access to markets.

With the continent yet to achieve universal education for children, especially children with disabilities, APET is encouraging countries to invest resources towards enabling emerging digital and assistive technologies in schools for easy access to education. Such efforts and interventions can make schools more conducive, enabling, and practical towards disabled learners. Therefore, this can encourage and upsurge the enrolment of children with disabilities in African schools. Furthermore, to achieve augmented innovation and technology development, APET encourages African countries, scientists, and innovators to develop locally contextualised technologies to enable children with disabilities and teachers to relate the technologies in their own surroundings. This includes strengthening the information and communication technology so to bridge the digital divide across the African continent. Most importantly, this can be accompanied by a revised curriculum that is more inclusive and conducive to disabled learners.

In conclusion, APET is encouraging African countries to attain the AU's Agenda 2063 aspirations that centres around an inclusive education for all, even children living with disabilities. This will significantly provide an opportunity for quality education in alignment with disabled students' unique needs. Thus, by leveraging on new technologies, African countries will see young leaders and achievers, irrespective of their conditions.

Featured Bloggers – APET Secretariat

Justina Dugbazah

Barbara Glover

Bhekani Mbuli

Chifundo Kungade

 

[1] https://bettercarenetwork.org/library/social-welfare-systems/social-protection-policies-and-programmes/africas-agenda-for-children-2040-fostering-an-africa-fit-for-children.

[2] https://au.int/sites/default/files/newsevents/agendas/africas_agenda_for_children-english.pdf.

[3] David K Evans, Amina Mendez Acosta, Education in Africa: What Are We Learning?, Journal of African Economies, Volume 30, Issue 1, January 2021, Pages 13–54, https://doi.org/10.1093/jae/ejaa009.

[4] https://ablechildafrica.org/our-work/why-we-exist/.

[5] https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable/dispaperdes2.htm.

[6] https://www.nepad.org/blog/disability-not-inability-addressing-disability-divide-africa-using-smart-technologies.

[7] https://www.eenet.org.uk/resources/docs/6519.pdf.

[8] https://www.nepad.org/blog/disability-not-inability-addressing-disability-divide-africa-using-smart-technologies.

[9] https://www.nepad.org/blog/disability-not-inability-addressing-disability-divide-africa-using-smart-technologies.

[10] https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-018-3605-9

[11] https://www.resna.org/sites/default/files/conference/2021/InternationallyAppropriateTechnology/90_Addis/90_Addis.pdf.

[12] https://www.afro.who.int/sites/default/files/2021-08/AFR-RC71-11%20Framework%20for%20improving%20access%20to%20assistive%20technology%20in%20the%20WHO%20African%20Region.pdf.

[13] https://borgenproject.org/prosthetic-innovation/.

[14] https://3dprint.com/242448/3d-printing-africa-south-africas-3d-printing-sector/.

[15] https://www.africanews.com/2019/08/29/nigerian-start-up-creates-3-d-printed-limbs-for-amputees//.

[16] https://www.africanews.com/2017/12/04/south-african-students-build-affordable-prosthetic-hand//.