The conference, themed ‘Revitalising Education Towards the 2030 Global Agenda and the 2063 African Agenda’, observed that over 60 million African children reach adolescence lacking basic literacy and numeracy skills. Dr Jennifer Blanke, the vice-president of agriculture, human and social development at the African Development Bank, blamed African education systems for the continent’s lack of critical mass of skilled labour. “Most African education systems face a triple crisis: scarce human capital, low quality learning resources and poor social inclusion,” said Blanke in a presentation titled, ‘Building Africa’s Education Systems for a Prosperous Future’. Basically, educational quality shortcomings in most African countries are reflected in the students’ lack of foundation skills and critical competencies. Amid efforts to fix the continent’s tattered education systems, African education leaders and experts seemed worried of the emerging youth bulge that is often erroneously viewed as an economic and labour dividend.

Source: Standard Digital March 24, 2017 19:41 UTC