Primary education expansion and the challenge of inadequate teacher supply in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper focuses on the expansion of teacher education and the efforts to introduce universal primary education (UPE) in Africa. It also looks at the need for an adequate supply of primary school teachers. With specifi c reference to the expansion of teacher education in Kenya after independence, and the country’s issues regarding quality education, it shows that the poor supply of teachers in most African countries, following the introduction of free primary education, has more to do with (among other factors) the ad hoc manner in which UPE programmes were introduced, structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), and the teachers’ wage bill, rather than the inadequacy of inherited systems of teacher education.Proceedings of the 5th biennial International Conference on Distance Education and Teachers’ Training in Africa (DETA) held at the University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya, 30 July - 1 August 2013

Does Information Lead to More Active Citizenship? Evidence from an Education Intervention in Rural Kenya

We study a randomized educational intervention in 550 households in 26 matched villages in two Kenyan districts. The intervention provided parents with information about their children's performance on literacy and numeracy tests, and materials about how to become more involved in improving their children's learning. We find the provision of such information had no discernible impact on either private or collective action. In discussing these findings, we articulate a framework linking information provision to changes in citizens' behavior, and assess the present intervention at each step. Future research on information provision should pay greater attention to this framework. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd

Follow-up to the world conference on education for all recommendations : a case study of Kenya

Meeting: SEARRAG Conference on Education for All Project, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei-Darussalam, 19-23 September 199

African Education in the Twenty-first Century : Challenge for Change

This exploratory paper reviews African development in general and education in particular, and argues that many problems that bedevil Africa today, have their origins in the colonial period. Colonisation, it is noted, was not a developmental process, but a mechanism of exploitation. As a result, colonial education was designed and implemented to serve the needs of the colonial state, which was to produce a low level educated cadre of the labour force to facilitate economic production. It is in this regard that it placed no premium on promoting advanced professions for Africans. African independence, it is further argued, failed to alter the colonial economic structures, with their educational systems continuing along the Western models and paradigms that have little relevance to African development. The African governments' failure to reconstruct their education to respond to their immediate problems has been compounded by their heavy reliance on technical assistance, which by and large has shaped their educational agenda with little or no impact at all on development. In many parts of the continent, it is now apparent that the initial gains made following decolonisation have disappeared, resulting in economic stagnation, and in some cases disintegration through civil strife. The paper, therefore suggests that as the African continent moves into the twenty first century, African countries should take control of their destiny and pursue the kind of development which is endogenous to their settings. Structured international packages should be resisted in favour of international cooperation that responds to their own designed development strategies. Education should take the lead in the new transformation, with programmes that totally break with the past mechanisms of knowledge and skill acquisition. Such programmes should place emphasis on knowledge, skills and values that are based on the African environment in which the learners will live and work. Education should also spearhead critical thinking and emancipation of the communities from forces of domination and exploitation

Education and employment in Eastern and Southern Africa region : an appraisal

Meeting: What Works in Development? Planning Meeting, 2-6 February 1999Project number related to IDRC support could not be determine

The Role of Distance Teacher Education in Increasing the Supply of Primary School Teachers in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper attempts to show that a sustainable supply of qualified teachers required to provide quality education for all children in Africa faces very serious challenges which have not been met by the conventional approaches to teacher education. The current need in the supply of teachers has arisen from the upsurge in school enrolments since the 1990s as a result of the commitment by many countries to meet EFA goals, contributing to the recruitment of high percentages of untrained teachers. Compounding the low teacher numbers is the high toll on the teaching force by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. All these factors have a contributing role in the low levels of pupil achievement and low rates for pupil completion of primary schooling in many parts of the continent. It has therefore become increasingly evident that if Africa has to meet the challenge in the supply of adequate teachers required to provide quality education for all the children, it has to emphasise a shift in the conventional approaches to teacher education to distance teacher education which will reach larger numbers of student teachers. There is need for governments to adopt implementation strategies in line with their national policy on education to set up pre-tertiary distance education institutions to increase access to educational programs. The development of national DE policy frameworks is a crucial step in teacher training/retraining in the light of the changing challenges of distance education, the rise of civil societies and the expansion of trans-national education. Donor funded DE programmes need to ensure their sustainability by being made time-bound and are institutionalized. Furthermore, they ought to be carefully planned to meet urgent demands and need to begin with the necessary initial investment in infrastructure or building capacity through the system rather than operating in a crisis mode

Education for Democracy and Human Rights in African Schools: The Kenyan Experience

The increasing clamour for democracy and good governance in Africa risked being futile if a politically literate citizenry remains insignificant and is not proactively dominant in the workings of the state. A democratic culture anchored on the respect and protection of human rights need to be imbibed in wider cross sections of the citizenry. Among the structures in the society that can be used to achieve this objective, the educational systems can be effective in inculcating and fostering a culture of awareness of rights and responsibilities among the populace. But the organizational mode of current formal education systems in Africa, basically Western and trapped in its colonial historic origins in particular, have been lacking in promoting tolerance and democratic values. Rather, the itarian school structures have encouraged unquestioning acquiescence to ity. This paper argues that African educators should use the school curriculum to promote democracy and human rights. It stresses changes in the systems and the need to align efforts with a view to ensuring that democratic values would pervade the entire society beginning with organizations and institutions at the grassroots level. Résumé Plus de démocratie et de gouvernance réclamée à grands cris en Afrique risquent d'être vaines si une citoyenneté politiquement avertie reste insignifiante et notoirement passive dans le fonctionnement de l'État. Des citoyens de tous bords ont besoin de se pénétrer d'une culture démocratique profondément ancrée dans le respect et la défense des droits de la personne humaine. Au nombre des structures dans la société pouvant permettre la réalisation de cet objectif, il y a les systèmes éducatifs, efficaces dans l'inculcation et la promotion d'une culture de prise de connaissance des droits et obligations au niveau du peuple. Cependant, le mode d'organisation des systèmes éducatifs qui existent actuellement en Afrique, foncièrement occidentaux et pris au piège de leurs origines historiques coloniales en particulier, a failli dans sa mission de promotion de la tolérance et des valeurs démocratiques. Pire, les structures scolaires autoritaires ont encouragé une soumission à l'autorité. Le présent article défend l'idée selon laquelle les éducateurs africains se doivent de mettre à contribution les programmes scolaires pour la promotion de la démocratie et des droits de la personne humaine. Il s'attarde sur les mutations au niveau des systèmes et sur la nécessité de déployer des efforts pour la pénétration des valeurs démocratiques dans l'ensemble de la société, à commencer par les organisations et institutions de base. (Africa Development: 2000 25(1&2): 213-239

Improving the effectiveness and appreciation of vocational and other non-formal education programmes in Kenya

Meeting: National Conference on Education for All, Kisumu, KE, 26-30 July, 199