Highlighted session: Education for sustainable development in sub-Saharan Africa

Group Submission Type: Highlighted Paper Session

Proposal

What does new research show about what is needed for education to contribute to sustainable development in Sub-Saharan Africa? This panel explores how countries in the region differ in their success with expanding basic education with learning, the “unfinished agenda” facing many countries, the role of teachers, and evidence about what makes a difference for learning. Each of the papers in the panel was prepared as background to Facing Forward: Schooling for Learning in Sub-Saharan Africa, and each of the papers is multiply authored to reflect the team’s contribution.

How is the topic relevant to comparative and international education, sustainability, or a SIG?

Sub-Sahara Africa is becoming more diverse, urbanized and integrated regionally and globally, bringing the promise of more, better and more relevant jobs to the continent’s sizable and growing population of youth. Realizing this potential requires young Africans with a solid foundation in basic education, and opportunities for many of them to continue beyond basic education. Such youth—the continent’s future workforce—are essential for countries to tap into the world’s rich accumulation of scientific and technological knowledge for sustainable development and social transformation. This mechanism is so critical that many, if not all, African leaders have increasingly made the building of knowledge capital a centerpiece of their countries’ vision and strategy for development.

For the past 25 years, Sub-Saharan Africa has focused on enrolling students in primary school, the first step in developing human capital. The results have been nothing short of astounding, with some countries already providing all children with a full cycle of 9-10 years of basic schooling. Enrollment alone does not produce knowledge capital, however. It must also equip each child with adequate competencies in literacy, numeracy, and science—and prepare many of them to be educated and trained beyond basic education. Measured by this benchmark, Sub-Saharan Africa’s knowledge capital remains thin, even as the frontiers of knowledge push forward at a rapid pace.

How to build Sub-Saharan Africa’s knowledge capital by improving learning outcomes in basic education while expanding access and completion is the focus of this panel. It draws lessons—from the region and for the region—about “what works” to boost learning and how to better implement what is known to have worked. It also adds to the literature by its extensive new analyses of multiple datasets from the region, integrating findings about children’s learning, access to school and progress through basic education.

The papers in this panel meticulously document the progress in access and, for the first time, the current learning levels in a large number of Sub-Saharan African countries. It also demonstrates how countries in the region differ. Over the past twenty-five years, many countries in the region have universalized primary schooling and a few are within reach of universal lower secondary education as well. Other countries, largely in the Sahel region, still struggle to universalize primary education. Many countries have overcome challenges arising from poverty, conflict and high demographic growth, while others have not. These achievements notwithstanding, some 22 percent of the region’s primary schooling age children are still not in school today, and far too many of those in school drop out before completing their nine or ten years of basic education. Moreover, learning levels are inadequate, with fewer than half of students in most countries acquiring minimum competencies in reading and mathematics. Such competencies are essential for countries in the region to address sustainable development.

Is there a strong theoretical framework that uses theories to guide questions? Which theories?

The framework for studies in this panel is derived from learning theory and related evidence about “what works” and systems theory and related evidence about what is needed for successful implementation of what works. It is aligned with standard frameworks for understanding what improves education quality, with a focus on the learner, the education system, school and classroom settings and learner outcomes, in the context of education policy service delivery of essential inputs to the school and classroom. Implementation is a key element operating between the policy framework for education and the actual teaching processes that ultimately influence student learning. Interventions—policies and practices – known to be effective will result in positive education outcomes only when they are implemented effectively; this requires “moving science to service delivery”. The science is provided from the research on effective programs and practices and the service is provided through implementation. Only when both are effective can improvements in education outcomes be expected.

How are sources of information used to inform choices about data collection and analysis?

Data used in the papers in this panel were chosen to provide the widest and most reliable sources of information for further analyses. The papers in this panel present the results of original analyses of a range of data. Data sources include: UIS.Stat, Pole de Dakar for 48 countries, household surveys in 34 countries, World Development Indicators for 48 countries, UN Population Projections for 48 countries, Ethnologue for 47 countries, Armed Conflict Location and Event Data for 48 countries, PISA in one country, TIMSS in 3 countries, PIRLS in two countries, PASEC in 10 countries, SACMEQ in 16 education systems, Service Delivery Indicators in 7 countries, EGRA in 9 countries, STEP in two countries, OECD DAC for 42 countries, Education Sector Plans (GPE) for 20 countries, Public Expenditure Reviews for 10 countries, and World Bank staff surveys in 26 countries.

How do the research methods and results support the conclusions drawn from the data?

A range of analytic approaches are used, including multi-level regression analysis of survey data, and extensive validating of conclusions with experts and actors in the region. Each paper will discuss its research methods.

How original is the contribution? What do we learn that we did not know, and why is it important?

The panel’s papers are unique in characterizing countries according to the challenges they faced in the 1990s and their educational progress over the past 25 years. The authors add to the global literature with their extensive new analyses of multiple datasets from over three dozen countries in the region, drawing lessons from the region and for the region about what works and what is needed to better implement what is known to have worked. Separate papers detail how countries differ, the regional learning crisis, early grade education, and teacher policies.

Sub Unit

• SIG: Economics and Finance of Education

Chair

• Sajitha Bashir, World Bank

Individual Presentations

• Differentiated improvements in access to basic education in sub-Saharan Africa - Elizabeth Ninan Dulvey, World Bank; Marlaine Lockheed, Princeton University; Sajitha Bashir, World Bank; Martin Moreno, Independent Consultant

• What is the learning crisis in sub-Saharan Africa? And what to do about it. - Marlaine Lockheed, Princeton University; Natasha de Andrade Falcao, World Bank; Martin Moreno, Independent Consultant

• Teachers in sub-Saharan Africa - Jee-Peng Tan, Independent Consultant; Sajitha Bashir, World Bank; Natasha de Andrade Falcao, World Bank

• Student progression and learning in early grades in sub-Saharan Africa - Sajitha Bashir, World Bank; Elizabeth Ninan Dulvey, World Bank; Martin Moreno, Independent Consultant

Discussant

• Joel Samoff, Stanford University