By Moyiga Nduru
JOHANNESBURG, Dec 5 2004 (IPS)

A new report by the South African Institute for International Affairs (SAIIA) has highlighted the challenges and constraints facing education in Africa.

According to the Johannesburg-based think tank, more than 40 million children of primary school age in sub-Saharan Africa are not receiving an education, (this amounts to almost half the children on the continent who should be in primary school). Enrolment in secondary school in 22 countries is below 20 percent, and less than 10 percent of the workforce has completed secondary school.

“Africa should be commended for moving, albeit modestly, toward the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of universal primary education (UPE),” said SAIIA researcher Peroshni Govender recently, at a conference where the report came under discussion. The document is entitled ‘Back to the Blackboard: Looking Beyond Universal Primary Education in Africa’.

“But at the current slow pace of enrolment growth, Africa will not achieve UPE until at least 2150 – and even then it may not acquire the skills it needs to truly develop,” Govender told the Johannesburg gathering (held Dec. 2).

Eight MDGs were agreed on by the international community in 2000. In addition to calling for universal primary education by 2015, the goals are also aimed at – amongst other things – reducing the number of people living in absolute poverty, and cutting down on maternal mortality.

The conference, which attracted representatives from 50 countries, coincided with the Africa launch of another report – this by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). The 430-page publication, ‘Education for All: The Quality Imperative’, focuses on how to improve the caliber of education around the world.

“On current trends, one in two children in Africa will not even finish primary school,” said the Global Campaign for Education, a Belgium-based non-governmental organisation. “Without urgent action, including substantial increases in aid to education, Africa will not be able to get all of her children into school for another 150 years.”

The group adds that global efforts to achieve gender equality in education by 2005 are unlikely to succeed. At current rates of progress, gender equality will not be reached at any level of education by 2015, it warns.

Civil war has dealt a blow to efforts to improve education in Africa.

“In countries affected by conflict, enrolment rates are low,” Keith Lewin of the University of Sussex told the conference participants.

Lack of funding has also taken a toll. In Zambia, where more than 70 percent of the population lives in poverty, the education achievement is being undermined by a shortage of teachers, according to the Global Campaign for Education.

In a paper titled ‘Undervaluing Teachers: IMF (International Monetary Fund) Policies Squeeze Zambia’s Education System’, the organisation said 9,000 vacancies remain unfilled. Almost the same number of recently qualified teachers are also unemployed, apparently because of financial constraints that have resulted from the IMF’s structural adjustment policies.

In states such as Senegal, poverty makes itself felt amongst pupils as well as teachers. About 30 percent of children in the capital, Dakar, go to school without breakfast said Gorgui Sow, an educationalist from the West African country. Some 13 percent of the children only have one meal a day, something that prevents them from giving classes their full attention.

“So we resorted to giving them food,” Sow said.

Some blame the shortage of financial resources for African education on the debt burden that many states on the continent have accumulated.

Charles Abani of the British charity, ActionAid, said debt remains the biggest obstacle to advancing education in Africa. He cited the case of Nigeria which, he said, borrowed 11 billion dollars, paid back 28 billion dollars and still owed 32 billion dollars to creditors.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Abani said. “Calling for debt swap is not enough. We are demanding a 100 percent debt cancellation.”

According to the Global campaign for Education, Zambia will hand over a whopping 377 million dollars – or 7.3 percent of its gross domestic product – in debt repayments this year.

The group says that as a result of educational deficiencies, hundreds of millions of young people are being left without the basic knowledge they need to protect themselves from HIV, while countries hard hit by the pandemic struggle to replace skilled workers lost to AIDS. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region worst affected by AIDS globally.

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