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The United Nations is very worried about education in Africa

Schooling without learning

New hard-hitting report released by the United Nations shows that out of every 10 children and teenagers in the world six are failing to reach basic levels of proficiency in learning.

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Narrowing it down to the sub-Saharan African region, the learning crisis is very damning.

The research suggests that in the sub-Saharan Africa region 88% of children and adolescents enter adulthood without a basic proficiency in reading.

Over the period international aid in education has focused on the lack of access to schools, particularly in poorer countries in sub-Saharan Africa or in conflict zones rather than the learning crisis.

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This development has made the new research by Unesco Institute for Statistics warn of the lack of quality within schools.

According to the report, more than 600 million school-age children do not have basic skills in maths and reading.

In North America and Europe, only 14% of young people leave education at such a low level.

The research states that only 10% of the world's school-age children live in these more affluent, developed regions.

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Silvia Montoya, director of the Unesco Institute for Statistics says "many of these children are not hidden or isolated from their governments and communities - they are sitting in classrooms".

Pupils in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Nicaragua are unable to do simple sums or read simple sentences even after years in school.

Only 7% of pupils in Mali have a basic level of proficiency in primary school.

There are also wide gulfs within countries. At the end of primary school in Cameroon, only 5% of girls from the poorest families were at a level to continue with their education, compared with 76% of girls from wealthy families, the report said.

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The World Bank study examined the factors underlying such poor achievement:

  • It warned that in the poorest countries many pupils arrived at school in no condition to learn
  • Many had suffered from malnutrition and ill health, the World Bank said, and the deprivation and poverty of their home lives could mean they began school physically and mentally underdeveloped
  • There were also concerns about the quality of teaching, with too many teachers not being particularly well educated themselves
  • There was also a problem of teacher absenteeism in some countries in sub-Saharan Africa, which has been linked to teachers not being regularly paid

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