PROMOTING POST-PRIMARY EDUCATION AND RESEARCH

Africa has a large education deficit. Secondary and tertiary education enrolment rates in Africa are significantly lower than in any other region, with higher gender inequality than for basic education.

Understandably, the first priority has been to increase primary enrolment rates, which today stand at around 70 percent, with some gender inequality remaining.

Nevertheless, Africa still has much to achieve regarding school completion, quality standards and secondary enrolment. One of the best arguments for making your child complete primary school is further education opportunities.

There is a need to make secondary education more relevant for skills development in relation to the needs of the private sector.

And there is a need to improve technical and vocational education to equip the labour force with the necessary skills needed to drive productive economies.

In most African countries, formal technical and vocational education is neglected: less than 5 percent of secondary students attend technical and vocational schools.

Missing links to the job market

Technical and vocational skills development systems in Africa suffer from weak links with the job market. There are also constraints such as shortages of qualified staff and ill-adapted programmes.

Very few countries emphasise skills development in rural communities and the informal economy, which is the largest employer and source of vocational learning in Africa. Most of the training provided in sub-Saharan Africa is delivered through private providers.

For their part, universities are not focused on productive needs or fostering innovation and entrepreneurship. The potential of universities to promote positive change in society is largely untapped.

Graduates are often unemployed, whilst at the same time small- and medium-sized businesses lack educated and skilled staff to drive innovation. Essentially, there is too little relationship between universities, what they teach and study, and the real challenges that businesses in the private sector encounter.

Yet, studies show that when university graduates do business, they create more jobs than those without a university education. 

Universities can be engines of development 

Universities can harness knowledge and diffuse it into the economy when linked to business. Africa needs to develop universities that can serve as engines of development at local and national level.

Particular attention needs to be paid to agriculture, which has huge unexploited potential for growth, job creation and poverty reduction. Governments, development partners and business have not invested enough in agricultural education in particular of women, in research and in innovation.

The concrete initiative

The proposed initiative from the Africa Commission has two components:

1) Fund innovative ways to expand vocational and technical training and education

2) Promote innovation and entrepreneurship by creating links between higher education, research and business in sustainable agriculture