Commitment to the goal of universal primary education (UPE) by 2015 has received unprecedented support from governments and donors. But what is the reality for sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in terms of the additional educational capacity required? And will the demand for primary schooling be sufficient to achieve UPE?

New research estimates that to attain UPE by 2015 SSA would need to double 1998 primary enrolment levels. To hit this target, overall enrolment growth rates would not need to be much greater than during the 1990s, but at least half of all countries will require very high levels of sustained enrolment growth over the next 15 years. Even with this additional capacity, however, demand for primary schooling is likely to remain below the UPE level unless parental perceptions of the payoffs to primary education can be raised.

Provision of primary education of a reasonable quality is of paramount importance in any strategy to eliminate global poverty, the super-ordinate objective of all donor agencies. And as such, UPE is a central objective of all national poverty reduction strategies, which are being developed by most countries in SSA. But despite the high-level political commitment, little systematic and detailed analysis has been undertaken of the supply and demand issues.

This paper presents estimates of the number of children who will need to attend and complete primary school in SSA if UPE by 2015 is to be attained. It identifies and assesses the critical supply and demand constraints that need to be eliminated if all African children, particularly those from the poorest households, are to complete primary school.

Research findings include:

• While overall enrolment growth in SSA was quite impressive during the 1990s, improvement in other key performance indicators, in particular repetition and completion rates, and gender parity ratios, was very uneven across the region.
• Average annual rates of enrolment growth of between 3.5 and 4.2 per cent (depending on rates of repetition) are required to meet the 2015 enrolment target.
• Target enrolment growth for SSA as a whole, at around 100 per cent, is not significantly greater than actual enrolment growth during the 1990s, but enrolment capacity will have to increase by over 200 per cent in at least 15 countries which have suffered recent conflict.
• Target enrolment growth is 5.9 per cent in Francophone West Africa, 4.2 per cent in Eastern and Central Africa, but less than 1 per cent in South Africa.
• Overall demand for primary education will be affected negatively by the limited expansion of formal sector employment and limited payoffs to investments to primary education in the smallholder agriculture and informal sectors where most of the population of SSA will be concentrated.
• Availability of secondary schooling influences household demand for primary education - despite improvements in the ratio of primary grade1 to secondary grade 1 enrolments across most SSA countries during the last 10 to 15 years, access to secondary education remains very limited in many countries.

Policy implications:

• Recruitment and teacher training enrolment targets will need to be much higher than during the 1990s to accommodate the enrolment growth rate, smaller classes and teacher attrition - particularly from the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
• With existing teacher-student ratios the number of primary school classrooms will have to double to attain UPE by 2015, or more than double if class sizes are reduced.
• UPE must be an integral component of a well-conceived and adequately resourced national poverty reduction plan, and part of a broader human resource development strategy that does not focus solely on primary education.
• Enhancing demand for schooling will require additional benefits and incentives to ensure enrolment and attendance of the poorest children, such as free school feeding programmes, free uniforms, and improved counselling services.
• For UPE of a minimum acceptable quality to be become a reality in SSA, expenditure will have to increase, in real terms, at least three-fold by 2015.
• UPE by 2015 can only be achieved if donor support for primary education is increased by at least four or five-fold and/or there is very significant debt reduction.

Source(s):
‘Hitting the Target: Doubling Primary School Enrolments in sub-Saharan Africa by 2015' by Paul Bennell, March 2001.

Funded by: Unknown

id21 Research Highlight: 11 May 2001

Further Information:
Paul Bennell
60 Rugby Place
Brighton BN1 6ED

Tel: +44 (0)1273 503259
Fax: +44 (0)1273 503259
Contact the contributor: bennell_swainson@ntlworld.com

Other related links:
Learning Channel promotes quality education for all

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CIDA concentrates on Basic Education ensuring opportunity for all

Education Arena is a comprehensive database of the current international research in education

SD Dimensions aims to expand access to education and to improve school attendance in rural areas