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Short Abstract:
Africa's education systems are in crisis: data on learning poverty and participation in higher education show that education still fails in helping African children reach their full potential. This panel will examine key factors and ways forward, including medium of instruction issues.
Long Abstract:
Investment in education in Africa has increased tremendously over the past decades, leading to its massive expansion. However, the results of these investments still fall short of what is required to use all African talents to their full potential (SDG 4). Thus, Learning Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa stood at over 85% in 2019, as compared to around 50% in Latin America and 10% in Europe and Central Asia. Another indicator is the Gross Enrolment Ratio in Tertiary Education - in the Global North, it currently stands at over 70%. In Sub-Saharan Africa, it is under 10%. At the same time, educational systems are reaching the limits of what they can achieve using former colonial languages as medium of instruction, as argued by Wolff and others. Conclusion: there is an educational crisis. Africa's education systems are currently failing Africa's children, its youngsters, and therefore its future. The few who are well-trained are lured to move to the North, those who are not are subject to marginalization processes in their own countries and abroad. However, acknowledging these problems will also bring change. This panel will discuss ways of combating learning poverty and increasing participation in higher education. It will examine the positive role that a transition to African languages as medium of instruction can potentially play in this regard.
The last session will also discuss the work of the Edinburgh Circle on the Promotion of African Languages and the new 'Language Policy in Africa' journal.