The pandemic affected not only the health of the population worldwide but the economy, politics, as well as education matters. When speaking of the academic situation in Africa, it is believed to be worse like never before but there are prospects to study despite all the difficulties. Let’s find out what African students can expect from education in 2021.
Educational Struggles in Africa in 2020
Before the pandemic, the world has already faced a learning crisis. Around 53% of 10 years old kids living in the countries of the third world have been found to fail reading with comprehension. The onset of the pandemic led to taking approximately 1.6 billion students out of schools which only strengthened the learning poverty. To deal with such a situation, many educational institutions went for distance learning online, but some African schools are out of mobile devices. That’s why governments and development partners work their best to remedy that learning poverty.
Today, Sub-Saharan Africa greatly suffers from the learning crisis where it was estimated at 87% before the onset of COVID-19. So, the increase might be small at 4% on average. It means that the situation would affect those students who have been already found to fail reading.
If speaking of Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Northern Africa regions, children there are below the minimum proficiency level. The pandemic may occasionally increase the learning deprivation gap. It will then lead to double or triple costs of remedying the learning crisis in the continent.
The HRW organization conducted a variety of remote interviews with educational representatives, and students from the Africa continent including Nigeria, Zambia, Kenya, Morocco among others to learn the effects of COVID-19 on education out there. The results showed that many students have been excluded from their educational institutions. Read more…
