Sub-Saharan Africa has 97 million out-of-school children, the highest rate in the world. Children out of school stalls development and is a tragic loss for personal enlightenment and societal progress.
In Eastern and Southern Africa, about 89% of ten-year-old children are unable to read and understand a short text, reflecting a high percentage of learning poverty that was exacerbated during the pandemic. Globally, Sub-Saharan Africa continues to have the lowest participation rate in tertiary education despite enrollment doubling globally between 2000 and 2013 across all regions of the world. And in many parts of the region, especially the fragile and conflict-prone countries, societal barriers continue to persist, keeping many girls and boys out of school and preventing women especially from being educated and becoming equal members of society.
Economies today require skills at varied levels and a robust education system in a country must be multi-pronged and equipped to impart knowledge and skills at all levels of the labor market. However, achieving optimal educational outcomes today is at best, challenging, as the world grapples with its worst education crisis in history following the COVID-19 pandemic.
