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Eastern Africa Region and EFA Progress

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

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Eastern Africa Region and EFA Progress

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  1. Eastern Africa Region and EFA Progress UNESCO Eastern Africa High Level Forum on EFA 13-14 September 2011, Mombasa, Kenya

  2. 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

  3. Education under stress • 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 absenteeism- many countries in the region • Fertility still high with greatest EFA challenge • Rapid expansion of secondary education and beyond

  4. EFA Progress and Challenges • 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.

  5. Challenges • Other major challenges: to increase girl’s enrollment and retention, traditional socio-cultural 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.

  6. Challenges in monitoring • 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)

  7. Early Childhood Care and Education • 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 2008- variations 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!

  8. Universal Primary Education • 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

  9. Quality and Learning outcomes- evidence from SACMEQ II • 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.

  10. 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.

  11. 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

  12. Youth and adult skills • 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 poverty-level incomes.

  13. 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,

  14. Education and Conflict Situation • 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 conflict-affected 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

  15. Adult Literacy • 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.

  16. Gender • 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-of-school 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%.

  17. Education Quality • 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.

  18. Quality of Learning • Low levels of learning achievement are related to: • socio-economic background • rural residence • lack of access to books • insufficient instructional time • inadequate of physical and material resources

  19. 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

  20. Generalizations on education quality across the region is difficult. • 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)

  21. 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.

  22. 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.

  23. Thank You!

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