Education Across Africa – Its Challenges & Solutions

                                             Source – bit.ly/1LKCdJc

Education is currently one of the biggest concerns in Africa as most of the nations in the continent have a poor education system which is incapable of creating well trained and knowledgeable graduates who can successfully compete in the global job market. The truth is African education is presently facing a number of challenges like political, social and economic challenges, terrorism, poverty, illiteracy and inadequate infrastructure in schools.

Education In Africa

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Presently, there is a strong need for greatly improving our education system as our students are practically not learning anything useful or gaining any skills which will equip them to build a lucrative career and add to the national economy. Instead, we have developed an ineffectual grading system which promotes rote learning only to secure high scores in exams. As a result our graduates are ill prepared to enter the workforce and lack the knowledge and skills of graduates from other parts of the world.

Now it has become imperative that we raise our academic standards so that our universities can be at par with global institutions and create better graduates so that the African youth has a fighting chance in building better lives for themselves. As per 2011-2012 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, University of Cape Town in South Africa was ranked 103 in the world which was awarded a total score of 53.2%. This goes on to show that we need to focus more on enhancing the education standard in all universities across Africa.

Here are some of the challenges which our African education sector is facing at present –

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Lack Of Trained Educators

 As the education system is weak from the base, we are unable to create skilled and talented educators and teachers who would guide our students and help them prosper. The educators we have don’t know how to offer meaningful and quality education to our learners.

Lack Of Government Initiative

 As the political scenario is greatly influenced by corruption, the governments of different African nations do not take all the necessary steps to boost education. All several measures have been undertaken, but none have proved fruitful due to lack of funding and government support.

Poor Infrastructure In Schools 

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Most primary and tertiary institutes across the continent do not have the right equipments, study materials or even buildings to teach students. As digital learning is slowly taking over the education sphere, African schools find themselves ill-equipped to provide students the best learning experience.

Apart from these, there are various other hindrances and challenges which we need to overcome to create an ideal education system. But the main question which arises now is how do we overcome these obstacles?

Here are some probable solutions to improve the state of our education system…

Sufficient Government Investment

All the governments of African nations must unite to drastically improve the education scenario. The governments must decide on enhanced investment in education schemes which will allow institutions to but the necessary equipment and build more schools across various regions.

Teacher Training

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It is also important that we create skilled, well trained motivated and ethical teachers who will help our students to learn the right way and prepare for the global employment market. Our universities should launch programmes that will enable aspiring teachers to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge.

Online Learning

Today online study has become an integral part of education which allows students to learn what they want, when they want and how they want. Online education has the power to expand the reach of institutions and reach learners even in the remote parts of Africa. Our school must embrace the latest technology and offer affordable online learning opportunities to our students.

What do you think? Feel free to share your own opinions and thoughts with us on how we can improve education in Africa.

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