Challenges

The African continent has made significant progress in realizing children’s rights to education. However, there were approximately 105 million children of primary and secondary school age out of school in Africa in 2019, 41 per cent of the overall total. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated this situation – in 2020, around 250 million students in sub-Saharan Africa saw their schools close.

In today’s digital age, where connectivity is linked to access to learning opportunities, jobs, and social connectivity, millions of children and young people in Africa are in danger of being left behind – excluded from the modern digital world and associated educational opportunities. But as the youngest population in the world, the resolve to overcome these challenges is strong. A whole-of-society initiative of government, civil society and local and national partners come together to transform education for African children and young people. New technologies and an expanding digital world are a bright light at the end of a dark tunnel.

Toward a Solution

The Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA 2016–2025), in line with the African Union Agenda 2063, calls for multi-stakeholder partnerships to transform education for Africa’s young people. In addition to governments, international and local civil society organizations (CSOs), as well as the private sector, are playing a significant role in supporting child and youth education programmes in Africa. Every year, UNICEF works with 4,000 CSO partners in countries all over the world. CSO partners also contribute notable financial, intellectual, human and other resources to joint programmes. In recent years, Chinese CSOs have started programmes in African countries to enhance people-to-people exchange in the areas of education, health and community engagement.

Against this backdrop, UNICEF facilitates South-South and triangular cooperation (SSTC) between Chinese CSOs and partner countries in Africa. On the occasion of the China-Africa People’s Forum 2021, the China NGOs Network for International Exchanges (CNIE) and UNICEF co-organized the seminar, “The Promise and Challenge of Education in

Africa: Reimagining education for children”, to strengthen solidarity and inform advocacy for greater recognition and support for achieving key results for children in Africa, especially focusing on education.

This SSTC initiative provided a platform to share current good practices and experiences in supporting children and young people’s education; informed Chinese CSOs and private sectors about the needs for reimagining education: digital learning in Africa; and discussed potential ways of enhancing collaboration between African and Chinese CSOs and other stakeholders to achieve and accelerate Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for children in Africa.

“Education is one of the key priorities for Africa’s cooperation with China and under the South-South cooperation framework. Africa is also working with international organizations such as UNICEF and CSOs in the implementation of the SDGs and the Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA)”, said the Representative of the African Union to China.

Though education enjoyed huge success in response to the COVID-19 crisis, there is still a lack of connectivity and digital resources, so it is important to invest in digital education devices and content, qualified teachers, and better data production and usage. According to UNICEF’s Senior Education Advisor, this is not to replace the current education services delivery but to complement it, in order to raise the quality of education and, in particular, to support teachers and support learners’ holistic needs in health, nutrition, psychosocial safety etc., to keep them continuing in school.

CSO representatives from The United Republic of Tanzania and Niger shared their experiences in improving learning opportunities for children. The CSOs have been engaged in monitoring, evaluation and learning; they have supported skills, tools and content development; they have identified challenges and created solutions to address them so that they can make a real difference, as well as in advocacy and policy engagement.