It has been almost two years that we have lived with Covid-19 that still hits all aspects of our lives very hard. Education is one of the sectors most affected by the pandemic, and we are now wondering if the United Nations’ goal will be reached at all. In Madagascar, is education a priority at all? One thing is sure, we are stuck in a sort of vicious circle: as suggested by Engle and Black (2008), we admit that education is a means to exit from poverty; but at the same time, poverty holds a lot of Malagasy back from enrolling in education.
Education in Madagascar: a mixture of cultural issues, policy gaps, and lack of infrastructures
There is a deep “culture of poverty” that shapes parents’ values and aspirations (Momo et al., 2021). Achieving higher education has a lot to do with household living standards; and school leavers are more likely to come from poor households. We live in a country still governed by traditional conceptions, where time-consuming domestic duties are given more priority than formal education. And that is normal.
That important cultural aspect is reinforced by an evident policy gap. Developing countries in general neglect early childhood education (ECE) (Neuman & Powers, 2021). UNICEF’s 2018 MICS reveals that only 15 percent of Malagasy children aged under 5 are enrolled in an education program. A World Bank report argues that kids who have access to ECE are less likely to drop out of school, and are more likely to complete more years of schooling (2018). In Madagascar, “Education for All” sounds more like “access to primary education”. After five years of schooling in primary public schools, our “kilonga” in rural areas are very likely to stop. And this leads us to the problem of infrastructure.
The first necessity is to have a school nearby. Unfortunately, we can locate many “education deserts” in the developing world (Rodriguez-Segura & Kim, 2021) where people have to travel miles to find an education center. Then come other issues. From a study in 33 African countries via an econometric method, there is a strong interaction between fuel costs, low income, and energy-inefficient dwellings. Sule et al (2022) speaks of “energy poverty” that provides unequal education opportunities for rural kids. WWF Madagascar (2021) reported that a tiny 5 percent of rural population has access to electricity (and only 15 percent at the national level, plus power-cuts). Moreover, with this never-ending Covid, there is a clear demand for digital infrastructure, even unexpressed.
What urgent actions to take?
Building schools, granting energy access to households through state intervention, especially in rural, poor and remote places, providing basic living conditions to Malagasy households, … There is no need to mention that these are urgent actions that policymakers must consider.
Early childhood education must be on the policy agenda, and education specialists must assist the government in designing and funding more ECE institutions. So far, projects aiming at supporting education are more relevant for improved enrolment (the number of kids schooled), rather than increased achievement (quality education) (Brichler & Michaelowa, 2016). We should now think about how to integrate all the stages of education in the process. Aid should go not only to primary education, but to ECE and secondary education as well. A certain balance is needed. UNESCO’s 2019 data show that if 76 percent of Malagasy kids were enrolled in primary schools, only 27 percent attended secondary education, and only 13 percent reached high schools.
Anyways, it is not that surprising if our younger peers question the purpose of studying at the higher levels. Ultimately, the root of the problem would be a failing labor market. With that in mind, the private sector has a key role to play. But that is a completely different and long debate.
In a word, even if two years have gone by, the change in pedagogy driven by the pandemic is still qualified a “sudden change” (Ovedotun, 2020). We are gradually transitioning to blended teaching and education. More than ever before, education must be made a priority. Global data show that a significant progress (in quantity) has been made these last decades. 89 percent of children worldwide had access to primary schools in 2018, against 72 percent in 1970 (World Bank). But still, according to UNESCO (2019), 258 million kids remained out of schools at the global level, and unfortunately, the largest proportion was recorded in developing countries.
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