Dakar — "Secondary Education in Africa: Lifeline to the Future" is the theme of the second conference with a sharp focus on secondary education in Africa (SEIA) currently being held in Senegal. But can the theme become a reality?
The first SEIA conference took place in Kampala, Uganda in June last year Here in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, delegates are assessing and reviewing progress in secondary education since Kampala, as well as exploring the challenges and searching for solutions to the many problems that remain in the sector. These include finance and the relevance of what is taught and learned by secondary schoolchildren in sub-Saharan Africa.
More than 180 participants from 18 countries within and outside Africa have gathered in Dakar for the 3-day conference, to try to raise the profile and enhance the image of secondary education in Africa. The goal is to place it firmly as a priority item on the continental education agenda. They are battling. Donors are generous with primary and basic education in Africa which are fashionable. Secondary education is not, which makes it much harder to look for the money to fund it.
But donor organisations are not the only ones to blame. Many African countries themselves concentrate harder on and dedicate the lion's share of their education budgets to mass primary education, at the expense of the secondary sector. Understandably, say the experts, African governments want their citizens to be functionally literate - to be able to read and write.
Education experts, such as Jacob Bregman of the World Bank - one of the co-sponsors of the secondary education conference in Senegal - counter that school of thought. They argue that while it is imperative to have a population properly educated at primary level, it is perhaps even more important to ensure that these children move onto high quality secondary education.
Why? Because, says Bregman, Africa's youth - which makes up 2/3 of the continent's population - needs to leave school with a critical mind, not only knowing how to read, write and count, but with the relevant and employable skills, competence, tools and opportunities to face the real world, with its cutthroat global and regional job markets. "The main goal of secondary education must be to enable the youth to meet the challenges of the 21st century and to fulfil their responsibilities as citizens and play an economic role in the development of African society," he said.
Bregman, lead education specialist at the World Bank and SEIA task team leader, warned: "It is well known that for countries to be competitive, they must have a competitive workforce. I don't think a workforce can be competitive with only primary education."
So the gauntlet is down and the challenges are clear. But is Africa up to the task? Yes, said Bregman, adding that to make this possible, the continent must reform and modernise its secondary education curricula, to make high schools in Africa relevant to a fast-changing world and push out young people who are ready to work.
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and basic Mathematics were a must, he said, adding that secondary school graduates should be able to "identify a problem, formulate a solution" be capable of speaking a second language and working with others.
Delegates pointed to successful secondary education systems in other regions of the world - including Europe and middle-income countries in Asia - that work, because school curricula are constantly being reviewed, revised and updated.
Bregman noted that in many African countries, curricula were still based on post-colonial models which, in some cases, had not changed for twenty or thirty years, making them stagnant and largely irrelevant, "overflowing with outdated knowledge and facts". He called for an immediate overhaul, concluding that "Africa as a continent should develop an African model of education to solve her problems" and that African governments should take responsibility for these reforms.
Expanding on the need for curriculum reform, independent education specialist, Pai Obanya, a Nigerian, added that a good number of African nations had simply retained the 'colonial arrangement,' only changing the label to make it 'national'. So, for example, he said, the French Baccalaureat system, known as 'Le Bac' (the final secondary school examination in the French educational system) guides secondary school curricula in nearly all francophone African countries to date, from Burkina Faso through the Central African Republic to Djibouti, Niger and Senegal.
Obanya outlined the reasons behind this trend. "One argument often advanced in favour of the adoption strategy is the question of the 'equivalences' of diplomas and certificates. If you distance your curriculum too much from the inherited colonial pattern, how do you ensure the international acceptability of your diplomas and certificates? This is a genuine question that any meaningful secondary education curriculum reform effort must address," he said in a paper presented at the Dakar conference.
The major problem with the adoption method, argues Obanya, is that you may be adopting "simply the letter and not the spirit of the inherited colonial curriculum". He said this meant the system was often limited to curriculum content, but did not focus on making the curriculum work - namely concentrating on "teachers, learning methods, technology and the stimulation of the school atmosphere".
The other key issue, of course, is money.
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Curriculum, planning, cost and financial sustainability in secondary education are all very much the focus here in Senegal But surely a better curriculum requires more funds and more teachers? Ah yes!
Addressing the official opening of the SEIA conference on Monday, Mamadou Ndoye, executive secretary of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA), warned that the quest to finance sustainable secondary education was tough, but unavoidable.
Ndoye noted that Africa required in excess of US$21bn - up to US$2m a year - in outside funding alone, to reach the 2015 goal of universal primary education. The cost of secondary education, he said, would much higher. "And where are we going to find that money?" he lamented.
Ndoye suggested that Africa need to diversify its sources of funding and "learn to innovate and adapt (its) internal resources to achieve greater efficiency".
Senegal's Education Minister, Moustapha Sourang, agreed. But while stressing that Africa must depend on its own resources for its own development, Sourang appealed for increased support for secondary education on the continent, from African governments and donor organisations. Conference delegates in Dakar must be hoping that call will be heeded.
The 3-day meeting, hosted by the Senegalese government and jointly organised by the World Bank, the World Bank Institute, the International Institute for Educational Planning and ADEA, ends on Wednesday.
