The multiplier effects from education are well known. It is not in doubt that a well educated person can take care of himself or herself. Besides, such a person can be a change agent. But Africa, which badly needs such change agents, is not making appreciable progress in the area of education. There is no basis to compare the rate of progress in the sector in the developed nations with what currently obtains in Africa. In fact, many commentators believe that the continent is falling further behind and will continue to do so for obvious reasons.
One major factor has to do with the rapid population growth in most parts of Africa. The other reason concerns lukewarm government attitude to funding education. From 1960 to 2015, the gap between the average number of years of education obtained by African adults aged 25 and above and that of the rest of the world increased from two to three years. Today African adults have, on average, five years of education while the rest of the world has around eight.
Taking a closer look at the demographics, one will find huge disparities. Although education levels are improving everywhere, in Africa it seems to be retrogressing.
What is more perplexing is that governments in Africa are not doing anything tangible to change the situation. Concerned activists need to drum up strategies to start the badly needed revolution. Many African countries need to declare a state of emergency in the education sector. Apart from the quality of education, countries now take less time to improve the average years of education than in the past.
Concerned Africans do not need to wait for politicians to stir the revolution. African politicians are very selfish. Take the case of Nigeria where for the past decade political leaders have merely been paying lip service to the improvement of the sector. The executive and legislative arms have annually been starving the sector of needed funds while allocating to themselves millions of naira monthly as running costs.
Virtually every adult knows that the relationship between higher levels of education and income is strong and statistically significant. The better educated one is, the higher the chances of increasing earnings and contributing to societal progress. Education is like war. It is too important to be left to the politicians alone.
