 Education Data Key Issues Sector Strategy
An Education Sector Strategy Update is expected to be prepared by the end of calendar 2004. Consultations with country partners, donors, and all stakeholders will be an important part of this exercise. Recent Developments | Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries face a serious challenge in reaching the 2015 EFA goals. Following the decline of the 1980s and early 1990s, average gross enrollment ratio (GER) in primary education had in 2000 barely regained the level attained in 1980 (about 80%). The literacy rate is about 60%.
| | There are large differences between and within countries. About 70% of adult men and 50% of women are literate. The GER is above 90% in about half of the countries, but is below 60% in five countries. There are marked disparities in access to primary education within countries by income, urban/rural location, and gender. On average, disparities are highest by income group, followed by urban/rural location, and then by gender. For every 100 boys there are only 83 girls enrolled in primary education. The disparities between urban and rural areas are two to three times greater than between boys and girls, and disparities between children belonging, respectively, to the first and fifth income quintiles are three to four times greater than those observed with regards to gender.
| | In recent years, many Governments have shown strong political will to re-launch growth towards EFA. Education stagnation during the 1980s and early 1990s was more due to weak institutions, poor policies and low priority for education than to lack of resources. However, in recent years, many Governments have launched courageous reforms to promote education. These include reducing the high cost to parents by abolishing school fees, increasing budgetary allocation to education, earmarking of 40-50% of savings on debt relief under the HIPC Initiative to education, and reduction of the cost of teachers in many Francophone countries.
| | As a result of these reforms, over the last 2-4 years access to primary education has increased markedly in many countries. This progress is not yet reflected in the global EFA monitoring data which do not go beyond school-year 2000/01. More recent data show strong growth, especially in countries most at risk of not reaching EFA by 2015. For example, between 2000/01 and 2002/03, the GER increased from 37% to 45% in Niger, and from 61% to 67% in Mali. Equally strong growth was experienced in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Many countries that started from much higher initial GERs have also had strong growth, e.g., Cameroon, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique and Tanzania. Other countries have achieved strong growth as a "peace-dividend", e.g., Congo, DRC, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.
| | But improvement in quality has not matched the progress in access. This is reflected in low test scores and low internal efficiency. Despite reduction in repetition and dropout in almost all countries during the last decade, almost 1 in 5 primary school pupils are repeaters, and only 3 out of 4 pupils reach Grade 5 of the primary cycle. The level of repetition is markedly higher in Francophone and Lusophone than in Anglophone countries.
| | Progress towards EFA puts strong pressure on secondary education. Secondary education barely enrolls 25% of the age-group, as compared to an average of 60% for developing countries. This low capacity causes increasingly strong unmet demand pressure on secondary schools as larger cohorts complete primary education. It also puts severe constraints on countries' ability to provide the skills required to support resumption of economic growth.
| | The HIV/AIDS pandemic has an increasingly severe impact on education: In high prevalence countries, AIDS-related deaths more than double the rate of natural attrition. In some countries, the number of deaths now exceed the annual output of training institutions. Absenteeism among teachers due to HIV/AIDS-related illnesses has a negative impact on the quality of education. Furthermore, provision of education for orphans, now totaling 12-14 million and increasing rapidly, poses a dramatic challenge. |
Major Issues
| | Radical improved education is a pre-requisite for achieving sustained economic growth at a level sufficiently high to reduce poverty, and help build more inclusive, democratic and equitable societies. Historically, no country has achieved this with adult literacy rates and basic education coverage as low as those of the majority of SSA countries. To address this, access to primary education still needs to be increased in most countries, especially for the poor and in rural area. However, in all countries, low education quality is the single most important education constraint on achieving both EFA and helping countries successfully integrate in the global economy and benefit from the knowledge and technological revolution.
| | SSA's low level of education among women is particularly detrimental to achieving: (i) overall economic growth, given the positive impact of women's education on e.g., agricultural productivity; (ii) a pro-poor distribution of this growth, since women are among the poorest and education is the poor's most important asset; and (iii) improved health and nutrition standards, HIV/AIDS prevention and reduced fertility levels.
| | Governments need to give more attention to teacher issues. Improved education quality and efficiency will require major improvements in the quality of teacher training as well as in teacher support and management. In particular, recent progress in primary education in Francophone countries resulted from reduced teacher costs, especially through the recruitment of contractual teachers, generally at about 50% the salary of civil service teachers. Expressed in GNP per capita terms, this has brought teacher costs down to about the level of other low-income countries including Anglophone SSA countries. In some countries, the number of contractual teachers now comprise more than half of the teaching force. While this reform has permitted high enrollment growth, countries urgently need to address a number of issues related to the training, status and working conditions for this new category of teachers.
| | While maintaining priority for EFA, Governments need to adopt a holistic approach, giving increased attention to post-primary education. In particular, the ability to build national capacity, to benefit from and contribute to the development of new information/knowledge, and to successfully integrate in the global economy is severely constrained in most SSA countries by low quality and relevance of higher education and research. Progress towards tertiary education reforms has been slower in West-Africa than in Eastern and Southern Africa. Francophone countries in particular, have problems adjusting the system established after independence -- one that was designed to train a small elite to staff the new national administrations -- to a system responding to today's economic and social needs.
| | Political leaders need to give sharply increased attention to how HIV/AIDS now erodes past education gains, particularly in regards to: (i) the impact of HIV/AIDS on teachers and education quality; (ii) how the education system can be used to promote HIV/AIDS prevention; and (iii) how to ensure basic education for HIV/AIDS orphans.
| | Considerable benefits could be harnessed from increased education cooperation among SSA countries in areas such as (i) development of textbooks and other training materials; (ii) cooperation in higher education including development of centers of excellence; and (iii) exchange of learning and best practices in education reforms. In particular, countries may want to give more attention to the development of distance learning for catalyzing increased collaboration in post-secondary education and training, especially in teacher development, and in related areas of ICT and telecommunications. |
World Bank Support
| | Lending: IDA supports education projects in more than 30 countries. The annual IBRD/ IDA lending for education averaged US$188.3 million annually in 1994-97, and increased sharply to US$ 372 million in 1998. It has reached its highest level yet in 2002 and 2003, rising to US$472.6 million and US$423.6 million respectively. In 2004, lending totaled US$362.91 million. In recent years, primary education lending rose sharply from US$57 million in 2000 to US$238 million in 2003, which can be attributed to the Bank's increased focus on EFA. The current portfolio includes about 32 projects as of August 2004. The actual net commitment amount of projects under supervision is about US$1.5 billion, however, the actual amount is higher due to other instrument lending, including budget support, social funds, and rehabilitation projects.
| | | In addition, education is supported through other lending instruments such as PRSCs, CDDs, and Social Funds. The Bank's lending for education is growing through (i) re-engagements in countries such as Congo, DRC, and potentially Sudan and Liberia; (ii) increased support for EFA, especially through the Fast Track Initiative; and (iii) larger commitments to post-primary education.
| | Debt relief: Bank staff has worked with client countries to ensure that education development is given high priority in the use of savings from debt relief, and in the design of PRSPs. A recent review of countries' use of the savings from the HIPCs Initiative shows that the education sector has benefited substantially from this Initiative.
| | Support for policy dialogue and reform. Given the need for education reform to promote education renewal, the Bank devotes considerable efforts to help countries develop their knowledge base and institutional capacities to address urgent education issues. This includes: (i) reforms to improve education quality (through better teacher training and support, more and better training material and improved management); (ii) a major work program on how to promote provision of education for orphans; (iii) extensive sector work and knowledge-sharing on development of general secondary education as well as of technical education and vocational training; and (iv) several initiatives to stimulate higher education reforms.
| | Assuming continued progress towards peace, democracy and increased priority for education, education prospects in SSA are brighter than they were only a few years ago.
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Blunting The Spread Of HIV/AIDS Through Education  |
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