Beyond basic schooling

Africa has made considerable progress towards fulfilling the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in education, with access to primary-level education significantly expanded, particularly in the Sub-Saharan region.

While there is yet much work to be done in this area, with many young children still out of school, educationalists and policy-makers believe it is now time to refocus on absorbing post-primary education into this momentum.

The issue is simple. The successes of universal primary education (UPE) have led to pressure on upper levels –secondary, technical and vocational. And the demand for secondary places has meant primary school teachers are increasingly being called upon to teach secondary-level students. This will inevitably impact on the gains achieved by UPE.

There is a widely held belief that a holistic approach is now necessary.

Virgilio Juvane, an Adviser in the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Education Section explains: “We cannot look to one sub-sector at the expense of another. The world is shifting and there is now consensus towards tackling education as an integrated system."

He then asks: “Who will educate the primary school teachers, write the textbooks, train the inspectors and conduct the research?”

Next month in Maputo, Mozambique, ministers of education, representatives of development agencies, academics, practitioners and researchers will meet under the umbrella of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA). The theme for this important biennial meeting is ‘Beyond Primary Education: Challenges and Approaches to Expanding Learning Opportunities in Africa’.

ADEA celebrates its 20^th anniversary this year and for the first time, will welcome the countries of North Africa into its fold. The Secretariat has been the leading agency of the ADEA Working Group on the Teaching Profession for 15 years and has been part of ADEA since its inception.

The Working Group is composed of a steering committee of permanent secretaries, regional coordinators and development agencies and other stakeholders interested in issues related to the management and professional support of practising teachers.

The Working Group aims to improve the quality of education in Africa by working with African ministries of education, NGOs and the private sector to create an enabling teacher education management and support system and an improved teaching and learning environment for all teachers and pupils.

Mr Juvane welcomes ADEA’s geographical spread: “We are looking at strategic partnerships and in this regard our responsibilities go beyond our 18 constituent Commonwealth members in Africa. Our emphasis is on access, inclusion and quality. The Commonwealth has a role to play in helping achieve the education goal in Africa."

By supporting ADEA, he argues, the Commonwealth aligns itself with other international organisations, committing themselves to the responsibilities and challenges of education in Africa. “We can harness the synergies across Africa by working together,” he says.

This year’s biennial theme goes beyond the MDG declaration of achieving UPE by 2015 and looks at the implications of this goal. These include provision of infrastructure, human and financial resources, the quality and quantity of teachers, and the support they are being given to carry out their work.

*Virgilio Juvane will be presenting a paper commissioned jointly by the Commonwealth Secretariat and ADEA on ‘The Provision of Teachers and Education Personnel for Post-Primary Education’. The meeting takes place from 5 to 9 May 2008.

Secretariat Links:

• Education
• Country Profile: Mozambique