This is the 03rd post in a blog series to be published in 2022 by the Secretariat on behalf of the AU High-Level Panel on Emerging Technologies (APET) and the Calestous Juma Executive Dialogues (CJED)

In the last few decades, African countries have exponentially increased primary school enrolment and completion outputs from 27% in 1971 up to 67% in 2015. In addition, the enrolments and completion rates of lower secondary schools also improved from 5% in 1971 to approximately 40% in 2015.[1] Quality education has been identified as an enabler and fundamental to Africa’s sustainable socio-economic development process.

The United Nation’s (UN) Sustainable Development Goal Number 4 (SDG4) aspires to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all citizenries. The African Union’s (AU) Agenda 2063 recognises the importance of education as a prerequisite for the continent’s sustainable socio-economic development and growth. To this end, the African Union Commission (AUC) commissioned the Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA-16-25)[2] to enable a qualitative education and training system so as to develop a highly-skilled African workforce. This was formulated to ensure that Africans can achieve the vision and ambitions of the AU’s Agenda 2063. Such an approach can help African countries grow their economic competitiveness, reduce poverty, enhance healthcare services, and bolster job creation efforts.[3]

However, despite this significant improvement in education success, the quality of education in Africa has comparatively remained low, and the number of out-of-school children has been increasing. Notably, approximately one-third of African children barely complete their primary school education.[4] This is attributable to the limited number of highly trained teaching professionals as well as the limited access to high-quality schools and laboratory infrastructure. Most teachers, more especially science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers, are shunning the teaching profession because of limited incentives such as the low remuneration and unavailability of an enabling environment for teaching and learning, more especially in rural Africa.

Figure 1: Major challenges throughout the world remain for #SDG 4  - the quality of education. SOURCE: https://dashboards.sdgindex.org

The COVID-19 pandemic has created enormous disruptions in the African education system as most schools were closed on the onset of the pandemic in an attempt to curb the spread of disease. During the peak of the pandemic in 2020, approximately 32 million children in Eastern and Southern Africa were out of school. This was additional to about 37 million who were already out of school pre-COVID-19 pandemic.[5] Many African schools attempted to continue with teaching and learning activities during this period by using e-learning tools such as blackboard, google meet, Ms Teams, and Zoom, among others. However, some schools could not access these digital tools because of limited internet access utilised television and radio to conduct their teaching and learning.

The ONE Campaign using the Lost Potential Tracker has estimated that approximately 70 million children around the world in 2021 alone have failed to obtain basic literacy skills by their 10th birthday because of COVID-19 and pre-pandemic drivers.[6] To put this into perspective, the 70 million children who could not gain basic literacy skills were equivalent to the combined population of Senegal and Kenya. Consequently, this reversed the considerable gains attempted by most African countries to enable the “Education For All” drive. As such, Most African countries are barely establishing their education systems to eradicate poverty and hunger from the African continent. Regrettably, African countries, in the long run, will fail to improve their quality education outcomes characterised by a skilful workforce, a protected planet, and an inclusive and peaceful society.

The “New Normal” in Africa’s demonstrates that there will be more of the “left-behind” and out-of-school children who may not have the opportunity to obtain quality education as aspired by the AU.[7] In addition, COVID-19 is here to stay, and the world will have to live with COVID-19 into the foreseeable future. Thus, African countries should adapt and adjust to this reality of co-existing with COVID-19. This means that Africa’s education should incorporate a hybrid of e-learning and restricted physical classes to curb the spread of the pandemic. Unfortunately, the pandemic has demonstrated that Africa has a digital divide regarding e-learning as most students are unable to utilise digital platforms in schools. This is because of the limited basic information and information technology (ICT) tools and infrastructure, as well as limited internet access and reliable broadband. Therefore, Africa’s educational systems should adapt to this reality to enable the youth back to school. This includes sufficiently addressing the persistent out-of-school children due to the pandemic and pre-pandemic challenges.

To address these challenges, the African Union High-Level Panel on Emerging Technologies (APET) recommends that African countries should urgently address the high number of out-of-school children. African governments should prioritise education for all citizenry by ensuring that schools remain open and safe. Failing which, African countries will have persistent skills shortages in the near future of a well-trained workforce, and thereby negatively impact their socio-economic development and growth. APET is acutely aware of the concerns about the continual COVID-19 waves that have caused educational disturbances. These COVID-19 waves have caused African countries such as Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe to either close their schools nationwide or extend their academic winter breaks that have resulted in continuous school closures in most of 2021. During the same period, African countries such as Rwanda and Mozambique have continued to partially close their schools in the areas that have been worst affected by the virus. South Africa has opened their schooling activities despite the COVID-19 uptake. Even though all countries are opening their economic activities in 2022, it is not clear how the COVID-19 waves will impact the schooling programme in the year 2022.

African countries have learnt from the pandemic that keeping schools safe remains vital. Furthermore, it is damaging for African children and their communities when their classrooms remain closed because they are not acquiring basic literacy skills that may have ripple effects on the education systems in the long term. APET notes that the negative impacts of the closures are too enormous to justify continuing with the lockdown approach but seeking safe options to keep schooling operational. APET suggests that Africans use smart technologies and innovation to keep schools safe and operational. However, pursuing e-learning alone cannot replace the overall benefits of face-to-face and experiential teaching and learning. Therefore, Africa’s Ministries of Education and Health are encouraged to adopt strategic real-time and evidence-based monitoring of the COVID-19 infections continually and cooperatively. Subsequently, African countries should also prioritise timely COVID-19 infection responses within schools, colleges, and universities by using relevant and localised mitigating and preventative measures instead of nationwide school closures.

Reports since the advent of the pandemic have shown that children and schools are not the major drivers of the COVID-19 pandemic.[8] Thus, the health risks to children due to COVID-19 infections have remained limited. Since one-fifth of all school-aged children were already out of school pre-pandemic, it remains clear that the continuing disruptions are further exacerbating the continent’s teaching and learning crisis. In addition, the pandemic is also aggravating the already delicate educational financing situation of schools, colleges, and universities. Notably, there was a limited number of African countries investing at least 20% of their budgets into education as per the pre-crisis “Education For All” targets. However, the priorities of African governments during this pandemic time may refocus on other emerging threats and needs instead of the education sector. However, APET urges African governments to consider the education crisis with urgent and actionable interventions.

APET is also urging African governments to urgently invest in safety measures such as easier access to masks, guaranteeing adequate ventilation, and social distancing. These measures can be accomplished through sufficiently providing classroom infrastructure such as desks and chairs to enable social distancing. African governments should also provide clean water supply and hygiene facilities to enable the washing of hands. Furthermore, APET is encouraging African countries to provide adequate resources to encourage the catch-up on the teaching and learning losses that have occurred during the pandemic period. African countries should also strengthen education systems and mechanisms to endure future upsets and surprises such as pandemics.

Furthermore, APET is encouraging African schools and universities to augment their COVID-19 vaccination programmes and encourage the wearing of face masks policies when attending face-to-face classes. Basic hygienic necessities such as the frequent washing of hands with soaps are being encouraged in schools, colleges, and universities to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 disease. For example, Zimbabwe has developed the Tippy Tap technology, which is a hands-free device for handwashing that has found applications in rural African schools.[9] Scaling up the Tippy Tap technology has been possible because of the readily available locally sourced materials at virtually no cost. Thus, African countries can upscale similar technologies to enable hygiene practices. Such technologies should be water-efficient and cost-effective and utilise approximately 40ml of water for a single wash cycle.

In conclusion, APET notes that the “New Normal” is that Africans will co-exist with COVID-19 in the foreseeable future. Therefore, African countries should deliberately enhance their capacities to manage the pandemic while responsibly reopening the schools and their economic activities. Fundamentally, the reopening of schools should be accomplished without endangering the health of African students in schools. Thus, African governments should prioritise implementing safety guidelines and policies to prevent the spread of the disease further. Such measures can prevent the COVID-19 pandemic from further derailing the education system across the African continent. In this way, African countries will accomplish the AU’s Agenda 2063 aspirations of education for all.

Featured Bloggers – APET Secretariat

Justina Dugbazah

Barbara Glover

Bhekani Mbuli

Chifundo Kungade

[1] IOB Impact Evaluation, no. 311, April 2008, IOB Impact Evaluation, Primary Education in Uganda, https://www.oecd.org/countries/uganda/41464402.pdf.

[2] https://edu-au.org/strategies/185-cesa16-25

[3] https://uniathena.com/The-Importance-of-Education-in-African-society.

[4] 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.

[5] https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/40-cent-children-eastern-and-southern-africa-are-not-school.

[6] https://www.one.org/international/blog/tracking-childrens-lost-potential/.

[7] The Impact of COVID-19 on Education Systems in the Commonwealth, Edited by Amina Osman with James Keevy. https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/The%20Impact%20of%20COVID-19_UPDF.pdf.

[8] OECD Policy Responses to Coronavirus (COVID-19), Combatting COVID-19's effect on children, Updated 11 August 2020. https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/combatting-covid-19-s-effect-on-children-2e1f3b2f/.

[9] https://www.whatdesigncando.com/stories/hand-washing-stations-africa/.