This is the major goal of a meeting of partners and African Ministers of Education currently holding Yaounde.

Statistics from the African Union (AU) indicate that after 50 years of independence, less than 50 per cent of people have access to secondary education, millions of children are out of school and only about 6 to 7 per cent of students have access to higher education in Africa.

Whereas, AU experts say a lot of investment is being done in the educational sector in Africa. This is why a meeting of partners working to promote education in Africa began holding in Yaounde yesterday April 21. The AU Head of Education Division, Beatrice Khamati Njenga says it is the first time such a meeting is holding on the side-lines of the conference of Ministers of Education of the African Union (COMEDAF) comes Friday April 25, so as to come up with harmonised and coordinated policies that can meet-up at the continental level.

The idea of the meeting is to enhance the coordination of work done towards improving education in Africa. Beatrice Khamati said that people are busy pulling resources in different directions and therefore dissipating energy. “We seek to find out who is doing what so as to be more coordinated and identify better strategies for education for all in Africa,” the AU education expert reiterated.  

AU experts stressed that the meeting is not out to bring specific solutions, as the challenges of education in Africa are huge. Now that Africa celebrates 50 years of unity, experts are thinking about the next 50 years that is in 2063. According to Beatrice Khamati, to really achieve AU desires for Africa, the education system must be reformed to address that change because it is believed that one can only be the product of his or her education.

Everything that African Union wants in 2063 must be infused now into the education programmes, curricula as well as in the way partners in the sector operate. “The key issue is out to make education more relevant and instrumental to achieving Africa’s collective vision for 2063”, Beatrice Khamati stressed.