Challenges

The goal of Education for All in sub-Saharan Africa has progressed significantly since 2000 in terms of access to school for the greatest number. However, there are still many challenges in terms of improving the quality of education, and Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4) for 2030 recalls the need to “ensure access to quality education for all”. No country in francophone sub-Saharan Africa has yet reached the goal of one textbook per primary school child in reading and arithmetic, and this shortage is even more marked in secondary education. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increasing development of distance learning and the use of digital resources to ensure continuity of learning.

Toward a Solution

Initiated and financed by the French Development Agency (AFD) and implemented by UNESCO and the Institut Français, this project aims to improve learning outcomes by strengthening equitable and inclusive access for primary and secondary school students in francophone sub-Saharan Africa to physical and digital educational resources for individual and collective use. The project is organized into three main components, the first two supported by UNESCO, and the third by the Institut Français:

• Act for the Future: strengthening national development policies and strategies and diversifying educational resources; 
• Produce for Learning: improving the production and dissemination of educational resources for individual and collective use; 
• Read to Learn: development of the place and role of children’s books by promoting a literate environment for learning

The project capitalizes on good practices, defines norms and standards for the production of educational resources and collaborative work methods for the production of shared educational resources across participating countries. It aims at achieving the following results:

• National policies for the production, acquisition, dissemination and use of books, textbooks and other educational resources are more efficient.
• Viable strategies for the management and dissemination of educational resources for individual and collective use are available and implemented.
• Physical and digital educational resources for individual and collective use are diversified, of better quality and produced in abundance.
• Primary and secondary school students have equitable access to educational resources for individual and collective use that are widely disseminated.
• The capacities of the actors of the book chain are strengthened and the local production chain is better structured.

The project started by engaging participating countries in the development of a generic methodology for diagnosis of national strategies and policies for the production and dissemination of educational resources. This methodology has been successfully tested in three pilot countries (Burkina Faso, Senegal and Togo), and is now proposed to all other participating countries willing to replicate and engage in diagnosis and development of transformative strategies and plans, for the production and dissemination of quality educational resources. Diagnosis is implemented by national country teams to foster ownership and knowledge-building at country level and to foster the systematic development of national road maps for later inclusion in ministerial plans and policies.

The African Meeting for Educational Resources, from 14 to 16 June 2022, was the culmination of the first phase of the project. It brought together representatives of the 16 beneficiary countries. The event aimed to strengthen the production, dissemination, access and use of quality educational resources, while formalizing the transition to the second phase of the project by engaging in policy dialogue with education and book industry stakeholders in the 16 beneficiary countries. The regional dimension of the event, as well its public/private partnership dimension, allowed for the strengthening of regional collaborations and sharing of educational resources through the creation of a regional coalition of actors committed to improving learning and access to educational resources in the 16 beneficiary countries. A regional road map for improving the efficiency of strategies and policies for the production and dissemination of educational resources was also produced as an output of this regional forum. As such, the project contributes to the 2030 Agenda for Education, which aims to ensure equal access to quality education for all and to promote lifelong learning opportunities.

Overall, the first phase of the project enabled beneficiary countries to draw lessons and build common understanding on the importance of: (1) strengthening national education statistics and information systems for better anticipation and planning of educational resources requirements; (2) increasing the national funding and education budget devoted to education resources; (3) improving the quality of textbooks; (4) fostering the emergence of local ecosystems of publishers/editors; (5) strengthening national documentary and bibliographic databases; and (6) improving country assessment tools for the measurement of learning outcomes. The South-South regional dialogue approach taken by the project proved to be a catalyst for quick replication of good practices across beneficiary countries.