Education in Africa

Abstract

This chapter reemphasizes the established relevance of education in human and material development. It points to education as a major factor that Africa needs to attain its development, which seems elusive, recalling the unprecedented development experiences of the Asian Tigers in the 1990s, which were largely attributed to human capital development. It logically links the relationships surrounding human capital, information technology, education, poverty reduction, growth and development.

Probing how Africa needs to exploit education for development, it recaps its education history, contemporary state and policy outcomes and gives a comparative view of those of developed countries. It grapples with the challenges confronting Africa’s development especially the need to ‘apply’ learnt knowledge and ‘bridle’ the corruption that hampers the effective implementation of policies. Capitalizing on Africa’s teeming population and the conclusions of new growth theory, it proffers realistically informed answers to [unriddle] Africa’s development questions.

Unlike most studies, which analyze individual country’s education, it qualitatively analyses several African countries’ education over the period 1999–2015. The discourse largely and unambiguously demystifies African economies’ seeming elusive path to driving and sustaining development. These should guide Africa to make the most of the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and future growth-targeted education policies.