Africa has the youngest population in the world. Almost 60 percent of Africa’s population is under the age of 25, making it the world’s youngest continent. Moreover, according to some key statistics provided by UNICEF, Africa’s child population will reach one billion by 2055, making it the largest child population among all continents. By taking into account these statistics data, we may come to say that the number of school-age population would also increase, which has always been a major concern for some African countries. In 2015, over half of the world’s out-of-school children – about 33 million – lived in Africa.

Paving the way of education through Millennium Development Goal 2 (MDG) and Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4)

Despite some figures showing that many African children remain out of school, which are mostly prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa, since 2000, enormous progress in terms of education has been made towards achieving MDG’s. Indeed, remarkable successes have been met in fulfilling the target of universal primary education, especially in the poorest regions. This progress is mostly seen in terms of enrollment in primary education which has reached 91 percent. Since the MDG’s were established in any region of Sub-Saharan Africa, it has known the best record of improvement in primary education. Between 2000 and 2015, the region achieved a 20 percentage-point increase in the net enrollment rate, compared to a gain of eight percentage points between 1990 and 2000. As a matter of fact, this enrollment rate grew from 52 percent in 1990 to 80 percent in 2015. Between 1990 and 2012, the numbers of the region’s enrollment doubled – these went from 62 million children to 149 million. Through the MDG 2, Sub-Saharan Africa also achieved a large growth in youth literacy, despite some challenges the region faced including rapid growth of the primary-school-age population – which knew an increase of 86 percent between 1990 and 2015 – high-levels of poverty, armed conflicts, gender barriers and other emergencies.

In the region, girl schooling continues to be significantly lower than male schooling. Of 57 million of worldwide children of primary school age but out-of-school, 33 million are in Sub-Saharan Africa, and more than half are girls. However, thanks to MDG 2 the net primary enrollment rate for girls has risen from 48 percent to 77 percent between 1991 and 2015. Since then, more girls have been seen enrolled in and able to complete a full course of primary schooling. From the 2015 report of MDG’s, ten countries have been able to push their primary school enrollment rate up to 90 percent. The list includes seven Sub-Saharan African countries: Benin, Cameroon, Congo, Mauritius, Rwanda, South Africa and Zambia, and three other African countries: Algeria, Cape Verde and Tunisia.

Millennium Development Goal 2 (MDG 2) “Achieve Universal Primary Education”  has been changed into Sustainable Development Goal 4 or SDG 4 which aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. For Sub-Saharan Africa, MDG 2 was a success since the goal on ensuring the enrollment of out-of-school children in primary education has appeared to be achieved. On the other hand, the implementation of SDG 4 through the Education 2030 Framework for Action seems also promising to Sub-Saharan Africa towards achieving quality education by 2030. Let’s hope for some more progress and success!

Sources: United Nations/ United Nations Development Programme/ UNESCO