Transcript Slide 1

Eastern Africa Region
and EFA Progress
UNESCO
Eastern Africa High Level Forum on EFA
13-14 September 2011, Mombasa, Kenya
Shifting context of EFA- trends that
influence its progress
• Globalisation and knowledge
economies
• Sustained economic growth in the
South
• Increasing inequalities
• Rapid urbanization
• Health concerns
• Increased public spending on
education
Education under stress
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Civil conflicts in some countries in
Eastern Africa (i.e Somalia)
Natural disasters – drought situation in
Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia,
HIV and AIDS: child orphans, teachers
Teacher shortage and absenteeismmany countries in the region
Fertility still high with greatest EFA
challenge
Rapid expansion of secondary
education and beyond
EFA Progress and Challenges
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Total primary school enrolment stood at 124
million in 2007, up by 42 million since 1999.
From 1999 to 2007, the average net
enrolment ratio (NER) in sub-Saharan Africa
increased from 56% to 73%.
Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, and the United
Republic of Tanzania have broken through
the 90% threshold towards universal primary
enrolment,
Primary school participation declined in some
countries such as Somalia suffered reversals
related to current or recent conflict.
Internal disparities can derail many countries
from achieving the EFA targets.
Challenges
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Other major challenges: to increase girl’s
enrollment and retention, traditional sociocultural views on girl’s education, teacher’s
attitudes, children with special needs, adult
literacy and life skills
Geographic isolation, extreme poverty, social
exclusion, disability and conflict also
exacerbate the situation.
Language issues must play a central role in
education sector planning. For marginalized
learners, the school language creates huge
barriers to learning, compounding other
challenged such as poverty, remote locations,
migration, hunger, conflict and labour issues.
Challenges in monitoring
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Contested conceptual understandings of key concepts
(e.g. educational quality, life skills, literacy)
Lack of comprehensive, disaggregated, reliable and
timely data
Weakness of financial data
Little availability of sub-national data- difficult to
understand issues such as inclusive education,
unreached and marginalized population, gender
disparity
Lack of Literacy Assessments to understand the
proficiency levels and impact of adult education/NFE
programmes (Kenya 2006 KNALS a good example)
Lack of clear definition, interpretation and meaning of
some goals in addition to determining appropriate &
valid indicators (Life skills and life long learning)
Early Childhood Care and
Education
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1. ECCE access still limited.
2. Prevalence of Malnutrition a major barrier to EFA
3. Children entering primary without ECCE experience
is still a major issue!
4. GER increased from 12 % in 2000 to 16% in 2008variations exists!
Seychelles and Mauritius show universal attainment,
Tanzania (29%), Kenya (53%), show progress and
Eritrea (7%), Madagascar (10%), as well as Djibouti,
Uganda, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Comoros show very
low levels of enrolment.
5. Care providers often lacking necessary training in
early childhood care
6. ECCE is provided by private sector in most
countries- the issue of coordination and provision of
holistic care remain a major challenge!
Universal Primary Education
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As observed earlier- the region has shown
considerable progress: Mauritius, Kenya
showing near full UPE as well as Comoros,
Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda and Malawi (over
80%). However, there are some countries still
lagging behind.
The school life expectancy for eastern Africa
is only around 6.7 years (6.8 for Africa).
Learning environment of children in both rural
and urban schools is still far from the
minimum standards required for basic
learning achievement -> language of
instruction critical in improving learning
outcomes at early grades
Quality and Learning outcomesevidence from SACMEQ II
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In many countries, the curriculum is irrelevant to the
development needs of the people, there are
inadequate and obsolete teaching and learning
materials, there is acute shortage of teachers all
resulting in poor teaching learning process inside the
classrooms.
SACMEQ II (14 countries), show that by grade 6 more
than 55% of students in 14 Southern and Eastern
Africa countries have not attained the most minimal
level of literacy required to remain in the school
system.
Only 14. 6% have reached the desired level of literacy.
The current literacy and language models are so
ineffectual that they result in at least 55% of students
leaving school by the end of grade 6 as unsuccessful
learners,
this undermines the EFA and MDG agendas.
Growing Inequities in Education
• 1. Geographic disparities- remote and rural
areas affected most- due to lack of infrastructure,
lack of teachers or qualified teachers, lack of
NFE centres
• 2. Other disparities: rural children and those with
disabilities tend to drop-out or do poorly in tests.
(poverty-> pressure to work)
• 3. Slums: In many contexts, the educational
participation and completion rates of children
living in slums, or belonging to poor families
living in non slum urban areas, are considerably
lower than those of other urban children.
• 4. Household poverty: Poverty significantly
reduces the likelihood of school participation. In
many countries, children from poor households,
whether urban or rural, attend school less
• 5. Disabled children: Disabled children are much
less likely to attend school than others
• Recent studies conducted in sub-Saharan Africa
show the chances of a disabled child not being
in school are two to three times greater than for
a child who is not disabled
Youth and adult skills
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There has been increase in TVET enrollment
from 277 pupils per 100,000 (from 18
countries in Sub-Saharan) to 408 per 100,000
in 2008 (GMR 2010)
However, many countries have TVET
programmes but lack of standards and
frameworks as well as comprehensive data.
Every year between 7 million and 10 million
young Africans enter labour markets
characterized by high unemployment, low
productivity, chronic insecurity and povertylevel incomes.
• The common strategy for meeting the learning
needs of young people and adults is through
expansion secondary and tertiary education.
• Skill acquisition through informal means and in
non-formal settings is common, especially
among school leavers and disadvantaged
groups.
• It can be facilitated by the implementation of
NFE programmes supplementing the formal
school system,
Education and Conflict
Situation
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In conflict-affected poor countries, 28 million children of
primary school age are out of school – 42% of the
world total.
Children in conflict-affected poor countries are twice as
likely to die before their fifth birthday as children in
other poor countries.
Only 79% of young people are literate in conflictaffected poor countries, compared with 93% in other
poor countries
State and non-state parties involved in armed conflicts
are increasingly targeting civilians and civilian
infrastructure. Schools and schoolchildren are widely
viewed by combatants as legitimate targets, in clear
violation of international law.
Over 43 million people are reported to have been
displaced mostly by armed conflict, though the actual
number is probably far higher
Adult Literacy
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According to the most recent figures
(2009), 793 million adults lack basic
literacy skills, the majority are girls and
women.
67 million children of primary school
age are not in primary school and 72
million adolescents of lower secondary
school age are also missing out their
right to an education – a risk of
creating a new generation of illiterates.
Gender
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The gender parity index (GPI) of the GER for
sub-Saharan Africa improved from 0.89 in
1999 to 0.93 in 2007
The number of out-of-school children is
dropping. However, the proportion of out-ofschool girls has remained the same at 54%
between 1999 and 2007 (UNGEI).
The parity index in Eastern Africa varies from
79% to over 100%. Countries such as
Uganda, Mauritius, Seychelles, Rwanda
virtually reached the gender parity as well as
Kenya, Tanzania, Madagascar being nor far
behind with GP between 95 and 97%.
Education Quality
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Many countries in the region have made
attempts to promote quality education through
teacher development programmes, and
curriculum reviews especially for primary and
secondary education.
Number of factors contribute to low learning
achievements
Number of factors such as violence,
harassment, language of instruction, teacher
qualification, teacher motivation contribute to
low learning achievements: in the region.
Quality of Learning
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Low levels of learning achievement
are related to:
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socio-economic background
rural residence
lack of access to books
insufficient instructional time
inadequate of physical and material
resources
Teachers
• Increasing recruitment of primary teachers. 22 countries in
sub- Saharan Africa have student teacher ratio above the
international ceiling of 40:1.
• Lack of trained teachers is a concern
• Attracting and retaining well-qualified candidates and
improving teacher morale are also a challenge.
• Balancing teacher salaries with budgetary constraints
increases the risk that less qualified teachers getting
recruited
• Within countries, marginalized groups are particularly
disadvantaged with regards to access to trained teachers
Generalizations on education quality
across the region is difficult.
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Due to lack of systematic, comprehensive and reliable
data across the region
In the poorer countries of the region many students
even after several years of primary schooling may not
have acquired basic literacy and numeracy
Also disparities in the quality of instruction and learning
across regions within a single country sometimes
exceed the differences between countries
SACMEQ II & III– show large variations in reading
achievement exist within schools in some countries
which may be due to inequity between students
(Tanzania, Seychelles and Mauritius) or inequity in the
quality of education offered in primary schools in the
school systems (Uganda)
Need to act fast!
• Accelerated progress in education
is critical for the achievement of
EFA and MDGs.
• There is urgent need for countries
to review the progress made in all
EFA goals since 2000 and identify
gaps and shortfalls so that steps
can be taken to address these
gaps by 2015 target and beyond.
• Countries should put EFA
concerns as priority and need to
recognize the challenges and
gaps and commit in strengthening
the efficiency and effectiveness of
service delivery of the education
sector to bring about the desired
impact and change.
Thank You!