Education in Africa


Education in Africa can be divided primarily into pre-colonial and post-colonial influences. European-style schooling systems took a primary focus during heavy colonial influences in Africa. Particularly in West and Central Africa, education has been characterized by traditional teaching balanced with a European-style schooling systems residual of the continent's colonial past.
Education in modern African societies is influenced by colonialism, neocolonialism, and political instability caused by armed conflicts across the continent. Additionally, the lack of effective education strategies aligned with global and civilizational challenges, including the pressures of globalization, has further hindered progress.
Although the quality of education, as well as the number of well-equipped schools and qualified teachers, has been steadily increasing since the beginning of the colonial period, evidence of inequality still exists in educational systems based on region, economic status, race, and gender.

List of African countries by level of literacy

The following table uses information gathered by the CIA World Factbook. Unless otherwise noted, a country's reported literacy rate reflects the percentage of people aged 15 years and over who can read and write.
CountriesTotal populationMaleFemaleYearNotes
Algeria

History

Education in pre-colonial Africa

was made up of ethnic groups and states that embarked on migrations depending on seasons, the availability of fertile soil, and political circumstances. Therefore, power was decentralized among several states; many people held some form of authority and as such power was not concentrated in a particular person or an institution. Usually, a person's entitlement to land gave the person some form of power within the person's household or within the person's ethnic group. Households were also economically independent, such that household members produced their own food, shelter, and security. Therefore, there was no need for a formally organized education in certain pre-colonial African states, as members of each household learned their skills, values, responsibilities, socialization, and norms of their community or household by observing and assisting older household members or community members. State-organized formal schools existed among Sahelian kingdoms in West Africa.
Education in many pre-colonial African states was in the form of apprenticeship, a form of informal education, where children and younger members of each household learned from older members of their household, and community. In most cases, each household member learned more than one skill, in addition to learning the values, socialization, and norms of the community, tribe, and household. Some common skills included dancing, farming, fishing, winemaking, cooking, and hunting. Some people in pre-colonial Africa also learned how to practice herbal medicine, and how to carve stools, masks, and other furniture.
Storytelling also played a significant role for education in pre-colonial Africa. Parents, older members of households, and griots used oral storytelling to teach children about the history, norms, and values of their state, household, and community. Children gathered around the storyteller, who then narrated stories, using personification to tell stories that encourage conformity, obedience, and values such as endurance, integrity, loyalty, and other ethical values important for community cooperation.
Festivals and rituals were also used as means to teach the history of their region or state. Rituals were mainly used to teach young adults about the responsibilities and expectations of adulthood, such as teaching women how to cook and care for a household, and teaching men how to hunt, farm, make masks, etc. Dipo, a rite of passage, is one example and is used to teach young girls – usually adolescents – about cooking, motherhood, and other necessary skills and values before they marry. is a Venda rite of passage for both girls and boys held after their puberty rituals, following which they enter adulthood. It lasted for 912 months and involved them working for a sponsor in the day, and having lessons in the night. Domba also included a 'python dance', with this and the lessons taught by ritual specialists in dedicated enclosures. Milayo were taught via proverbs, riddles, dances, physical exercise, songs, and dramas, with figurines used as teaching aids.
The origins of African education may be found in Egypt. One of the first convenient mediums for retaining accurate information, papyrus, was used to develop systems for learning and developing new ideas. In fact, one of the first forms of higher education in Africa were the School of Holy Scriptures in Ethiopia and Al-Azhar in Egypt. These schools became cultural and academic centers as many people traveled from all over the globe for knowledge. Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, founded around 970–972 CE, is recognized as one of the oldest institutions of higher learning in the world. It has served as a prominent center for Islamic and Arabic scholarship.

Overview of education in Colonial Africa

The onset of the colonial period in the 19th century marked the beginning of the end of traditional African education as the primary method of instruction. European military forces, missionaries, and colonists all came ready and willing to change existing traditions to meet their needs and ambitions. Colonial powers such as Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and France colonized the continent without putting in a system of education. Because the primary focus of colonization was reaping benefits from commercial colonial economies, cash crop production, and extraction of raw materials, other physically laborious tasks were prioritized. These economies did not expand to require jobs of a higher skillset or more labor; therefore, intensive labor that required little skill was in high demand. Because of these circumstances, there was little demand to educate or train the colonized populations.
Furthermore, colonial powers were unwilling to offer education to those they colonized unless it benefited them. Colonial powers did not view investing in African education as a practical use of their revenue or refrained from educating Africans to avoid uprisings. Those in positions of authority were specifically in fear of widespread access to higher education. Colonial powers often debated whether or not to educate their colonized populations and, if so, to what extent. Specifically, the British Education Committee of the Privy Council advocated for vocational education and training rather than one focused on academia. This vocational training, however, neglected professions such as engineering, technology, and similar subjects. Instead, the vocational training had a dominant racial overtone that stressed African training for skills fitting with their assumed social and mental inadequacy. Notably, the Belgians under Leopold II prohibited access to higher education in their colonies. At the same time, other colonial powers put barriers in infrastructure or access, such as limiting the language of instruction to the language of the colonizer, limits on teaching curricula, and ensuring the curriculum did not reflect any Afro-ethnicity. By demanding that communities create physical schools with strict curricula, the foreign powers could dictate what the people learned, adjusting it to further their agenda. This forced new forms and content into education and abandoned the knowledge gained from largely informal education.
With less community awareness, efficiency in learning skills, and an incredible understanding of the past, African communities began to dwindle in education and prosperity. Aspects of colonialism and its tumultuous effects on the ethos of education are still prevalent in African countries that still struggle to escape the impact of colonization in the 21st century. However, a 2021 study found that colonial education systems may also have had some positive effects on education levels in Africa, namely on numeracy. Numeracy in Africa had accelerated since the 1830s but increased during the late 19th and the first two decades of the 20th century. This suggests that colonial education was a determining factor for better education. This positive relationship might have existed due to the effort to spread European schooling among native populations to legitimize colonial power, since this accelerated the organization of schools. At the same time, demand for European-prompted education was rising because the colonial economy brought about new export opportunities, to which African farmers responded.
Between the 1950s and 1990s, African countries regained their independence. With this recovered freedom, they began to rebuild their traditional forms of education. However, a hybrid of the two models inevitably evolved. The collaboration of donor agencies and Western demand pushes for the development of African education, and the building of human capital, dominated global conversation. Namely, the 1960s were known as the First Development Decade by the UN. Policymakers prioritized secondary and tertiary education before also setting their sights on universal primary education around 1980. This set the precedent for educational planning. Although children and adults may learn from their families and community, a sense of individuality has also developed that drives ingenuity and creates separation between groups and cultural traditions. African education programs have evolved to engage both groups; for example, an HIV/AIDS awareness program may involve members visiting communities to share their knowledge. While this approach is direct and cognitive, it also seeks to involve all community members, fostering a sense of ownership and cultural acceptance.