‘Education has to be linked to all sectors” including health and agriculture for Africa to have education and training that is sustainable to development. “Education must go to different actors of the economy and society” and there should be a dialogue around the definition of policies.
This is what Mamadou Ndoye, the former executive secretary of the association for the development of education in Africa (ADEA), and former education minister of Senegal said. Ndoye was one of the key speakers at a ceremony, which launched a conference on education that will be held in Burkino Faso in November this year.
The Triennal on Education and Training in Africa — believed to be the world’s premier event on education in Africa because of the level of participation and the substance of discussions — will have the following theme: “Promoting critical knowledge, skills and qualifications for sustainable development in Africa: how to design and build an effective response by education and training systems?”
Although Africa faces a number of inefficiencies in its education systems, Ndoye said: “we need to look at the relationship of education and training in relation to the needs of society. Who is trained for what purpose? What is the relevance of the learning?”
Decision makers must identify “future skills and link them to sustainable development. In terms of sustainable economic growth, we need to look at what type of growth enables one to protect human resources and natural resources.”
Ndoye stressed that Africa should adopt a concept of lifelong learning from birth to death and one should be able to learn everywhere, ranging from the workplace to leisure time. “There should be opportunities to share and develop knowledge. We should build learner communities.”
Ndoye told the Teacher that education and training for sustainable development has four dimensions:
- It is about education for the protection of the environment;
- It should focus on increasing productivity in the workplace and entrepreneurship;
- It should centre on moving towards an inclusive society and should encompass how education can contribute to the fight against poverty and marginalisation; and
- Â It should promote an understanding between culture and religious conviction and spiritual thinking so that it prepares young people to live in peace and civil conflicts can be avoided.
Ndoye stressed that schools should provide relevant skills to learners to help them tackle the challenges of the environment. There is a need to change the way children learn as well as the way teachers teach and the heads of schools are trained.
He cited Germany as an example. Each school works in partnership with a private company. “Students have a lesson in enterprise then a week in enterprise. Students observe what happens at a company. When they go back to school they look at problems and how to resolve them.”
A further relevance-related example is when a primary school teacher wants to talk to learners about disease prevention. By “taking a doctor into the classroom in the village is more relevant” than the teacher just talking to the learners.
Ndoye said from 1995 until now there has been immense progress in access to school and university education in Africa. “About 80% to almost 100% of children attend basic education. In the area of gender equality in basic education Africa has made very big progress— but the quality of the education is reason for concern.”
He points to regional literacy and numeracy testing of learners which yield poor results. “The big challenge is if you put children in schools they must learn. If half are achieving the learning objectives this points to bad quality education.”
He said Africa inherited a colonial system whose objectives were to train “some collaboratives for colonial entrepreneurship and administration. Post independence we did not change the education systems and the schools. The system for example does not want to embrace indigenous knowledge and values. We don’t have the indigenous capacity to own science and technology. We imitate. We are not creating [scientific knowledge].”
According to Dr George Afeti, a thematic coordinator for ADEA, the informal sector accounts for 80% of total employment and in some countries young people take up to five years before finding a job. Furthermore, 95-million young men and women are illiterate and are either unemployed or in very low-paid jobs.
“Training is not geared to the needs of the labour market … Whatever training we give must be related to employability,” he said.
Afeti said “the ultimate goal [for young people] is to find employment and it is important for every country to have a means of analysing supply and demand. “There is a need for labour market information systems. Training providers will have a dynamic view — adjust the curriculum to meet the needs of the labour market.
“Technical teachers need to be trained to quickly re-design the curriculum to match the demands of the labour market. If you don’t have skills you don’t have access to jobs.”
With relation to education and training for sustainable development, Afeti said: “We are not only looking at a classroom type system but learning can take place anywhere. There must be skills development in action no matter who you are. Countries need to place value on technical skills. People think that those who don’t have academic abilities pursue technical skills. Skills development should be for everyone and one should take away the stigma.”
He stressed that each country must agree to the integration of technical and vocational training into the national development agenda. If new enterprises are created they will demand new skills. If people don’t have these skills then it is a problem. There needs to be an emphasis on skills training.
“What is important in all of this is that nothing will happen if we don’t have the political commitment and will. Just one leader can make a difference.”
Primarashni Gower attended the launch ceremony in Tunisia as a guest of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa