Evaluation of Education Standards in Africa

International and Comparative education shows people from other countries how learning in other places takes place (Hayden, Levy and Johnson, 2015).. It also can inform the research on how different countries have developed and changed their educational systems throughout time. When researching countries, it can suggest trends and themes that have affected and developed other countries pedagogies (Hayden, Levy and Johnson, 2015). For many countries who do not have the money to change their educational systems they may have help from OECD, UNESCO, the World bank and the EU which can help fund projects, training, and help rebuild schools, centres and more (Hayden, Levy and Johnson, 2015). This can help governments see that the companies have been beneficial. Many countries may want to get more involved in helping or even asking them for help. International education is often related to concepts of global, intercultural, multinational education (Clarkson, 2009; Phillips & Schweisfurth, 2014). International education can educate other countries as to how their curriculums are done and how effective their they are. Many countries may be involved in testing systems E.G PISA, which can show everyone which countries get the best grades throughout maths, English and science. Students exchange where students from one country will visit another country, as in they will swap lives for a while (Hayden, Levy and Johnson, 2015). The student is able to learn subjects in the language of the country which will give them an insight of how that countries educational system works, the typical day for example time periods etc. Whereas comparative education can be the action of teaching in other countries for example peace education. Peace education are activities there to promote the knowledge, skills and attitudes that can help people either to prevent the occurrence of conflict (Peace Insight, 2019).

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They can be a number of factors that may stop people from attending schools around the world. Even though providing a quality education for children is a human right, not all children have access to it. Many developing countries are not able to fund education and need help from other countries to be able to start to provide quality education. according to global partnership for education ‘less than 20% of aid for education goes to low income countries’ (Rueckert, 2019). Many children cannot receive a quality education as classrooms are overcrowded, not well built or learning outside and therefore it just is not a safe and good environment for children to learn (Rueckert, 2019). For example, in one country in Africa there are an average of 130 pupils per classroom in grade 1(Rueckert, 2019). This can also lead to not having enough recourses for children as they do not have money to build more classrooms, they are likely not able to  fund for books, pencils etc. Around 93 million children who have disabilities are denied access to education (Rueckert, 2019). Children with disabilities in developing countries who are not actively attending school is at 90% (Rueckert, 2019). This could be due to schools not being accessible for children who require a wheelchair or have other physical disabilities. For students who have learning disabilities as teachers may not have the time to help them as they may have a number of other students in their classrooms to teach. Also due to the lack of training they may not know how to help students with learning disabilities to achieve their full potential (Rueckert, 2019). For many females and young girls’ gender is the reason they are denied an education. around the world about 132 million girls are not enrolled in school. There’s many factors are to why young girls do not go to schools;

• 1 in 3 girls in developing countries marry before the age of 18 and tend to leave school if they do (Rueckert, 2019).
• Many girls in low income families help around the house so due to them at home responsibilities they are not able to attend school (Rueckert, 2019).
• In some countries they feel that females getting an education is less valuable than a man’s therefore instead of young girls attending school they are sent to work (Rueckert, 2019).
• Many young girls also miss out of days at school due to not having the appropriate menstrual hygiene education or toilet facilities at their school to help them manage their period in privacy and dignity(Rueckert, 2019).

For young people who live in countries in conflict it makes getting a quality education extremely hard. War can destroy educational systems in many places around the world. For some country’s schools are targets for acts, which will lead to a lot of teacher, students dying or going missing. For children living in conflict areas, 61 million of them are currently out of school (Rueckert, 2019). This is could be due to families being scared to enrol they children in education, as they may have previous lost someone or because of the high rates of death and going missing. Some schools may not have been built up again from previous attacks due to lack of funding from the government or help from  other countries (Rueckert, 2019). The distance to and from school may stop children from being able to attend. Some children around the world have to walk to school which could take them up to three hours each way. They may not have buses to get to schools whereas families may not have the money to fund the journey for 5 days a week especially If they are from a low-income family. People from developing countries who have a low income may have hunger and poor nutrition which can led them to not being able to attend school. it is found that people who are severely malnourished it can impact their brains development.

Millennium development goal were created to help people around the world. 8 goals were set by 189 UN member states in September 2000 and wanted to achieve all 8 goals by the year 2015. MDG 2 achieve universal primary education Millennium Development Goals, 2017). This goal was to ensure that children both male and female will complete a full course of primary education by 2015 (Millennium Development Goals, 2017). According to food and agricultural organization of the UN around 57 million primary school age children are not able to attend school and 80% of those students are from rural areas. These goals were set to help reduce poverty for people worldwide and fill the gap between students attending school and poverty.

In this section of assignment, I will be comparing Sudan and out of school rate in primary. If these countries were able to achieve the Millennium development goal 2; achieve universal primary education. As well as identifying possible gender inequality in education around the world. In Africa Sudan is one of the biggest countries as well as being the ninth biggest in the world (Mahgoub Badi 2010). In education in Sudan the gender gap is approximately 12% with more boys being enrolled in schools (Farag Elbla, 2011). There is still a high level of pupils out of school in Sudan from both genders (Farag Elbla, 2011). For many children in Sudan the reason they may not be able to attend is because the schools may not be able to give the children all the needs they require throughout the day (Farag Elbla, 2011). Clean, running water is something a student will need in school to keep hydrated in a high temperate country. Schools should be built so there is enough toilets for the population of students attending. If schools are overcrowded and may not have gender classed toilets for students, they will not be able to go into school and achieve the way they would like. In South Sudan is separated from the rest of the country which has a great impact on their economy (Farag Elbla, 2011). There is also a high level of unemployment. For Sudan to achieve the millennium development goal two they will need to cancel out all of those factors which will be hard as the country may not have the money to do so. For children may not be able to go to school as South Sudan is at war and has been for a very long time. The schools may be an extremely unsafe environment for children as many times; schools are the target for attacks (Farag Elbla, 2011).

Sudan does offer free and compulsory basic education which is one of their educational policies. Some schools in Sudan disagree with this policy and suggest that education is not free or compulsory (Farag Elbla, 2011). Students cannot attend or be enrolled into schools as they school do not have the resources to teach them. many teachers do not want to work their due to the country regularly being involved in conflict and war (Farag Elbla, 2011). Schools in Sudan are not completely state funded, parents are asked to pay around 5 to 10 Sudanese pounds a month per each enrolled student. This may be a lot of money to pay if the child Is from a low-income family.

In Ibrahim Farag Elbla study when interviewing a teacher, they said ‘

When we (teachers) at school, ask parents to financially contribute to the education of their children, they do not believe in us and think that we are taking their money for ourselves, they tend to argue on this by saying that, the government declares basic education to be free, so why you teachers ask us to pay (headmaster (2) February 2012)’. (Ibrahim Farag Elbla, 2011).

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As school is not completely free when asking parent for some help schools will not get it, as Sudan people are under the impression school is free there and why should they give more. This can also be an indictor as to why students are not enrolled in school (Farag Elbla, 2011). If families know there could possibly be an added cost to their children being in school that they may not be able to afford due to low income or unemployment they will not enrol students (Farag Elbla, 2011). Many girls in Sudan drop out of school, so they can get jobs that can help their families financially(Ibrahim Farag Elbla, 2011). The girls can become cleaner, house servants or selling products whereas other can get married which can help reduce the economic burden of their schooling for their families (Farag Elbla, 2011). Boys may drop out of school for the same reasons as girls and get a job. In some places of Sudan, the location and distance of school is stopping children from attending. Another educational policy is that the distance to school should not exceed 3 KM (Farag Elbla, 2011). The long journey’s to school may not be safe for students especially girls. Some parents may feel it is unsafe for girls to travel to school as they might be attacked or raped on their way to and from school(Ibrahim Farag Elbla, 2011). As well as it just being fundamental hard for children to do the journey if they are from a low-income family. They may not have a good nutrition meal which will help them when travelling. Students cannot wake up go on a 1+ walk to school, then have a full day, without having a good meal and they may only be able to afford it if the student is working (Farag Elbla, 2011). They will also need clean water for there and back, so they do not get dehydrated on their travel to school (Farag Elbla, 2011).

Was Africa set up to fail on the millennium Development goals? (Easterly, 2010) The world system analysis shows that lower income countries need the wealth countries in order to be successful. The core countries have the best education have better economics which means they can create higher paying jobs. Sudan is part of Africa, which is a periphery country, they grow the materials so other countries can buy their products (Easterly, 2010).  For periphery countries to grow they will need the help from other countries (Easterly, 2010). Many countries might not want these countries to grow as that would mean they would not have people growing the products for them at a cheap price as it is now (Easterly, 2010).  Many places may not have the climate to grow products. The millennium development goal 3 promote gender equality in primary school and empower women, they wanted to achieve 100% level of children to be enrolled and attending schools (Easterly, 2010). Africa are not going to be able to achieve 100% enrolment into schools. As they have several factors to bet before being able to achieve this goal (Easterly, 2010). Not all students have access to schools, they may not have the recourses e.g. pencils, paper, books, or a way of getting to and from school as it could be a very long distance, e.g. buses, cars (Easterly, 2010). 

Ghana is also a country in Africa that did extremely well compared to Sudan. Education in Ghana is compulsory, free and they have plenty more benefits than Sudan. Some schools can offer free school uniform and school meal programmes. This can help families that cannot afford these things. Whereas in Sudan they expected everyone to be able to pay to help with school even if they could not afford it. Ghana have been involved with the global partnership for education since 2004 and have been grants around 7 million pounds (Undp.org).The country used the money to help improve education in more rural areas of the country. This funding came from many companies such as the world bank, UNICEF, UNESCO. It has shown to help improve the quality of education, providing mothertoungue education, teach training as well as introducing school report cards (Undp.org). Therefore, the school is able to monitor students on their progressions and students will know that they could be consequences when not attending school. In 2013/14 Ghana reached 90% of children successfully completing primary school education (Undp.org). when conducting my research, I found that Ghana have several investors for their education system. Money that other countries like Sudan would need to be able to achieve the goal of all primary aged children completing school. 7 million pounds is a lot of money for a country and if they needed that much for there education (Undp.org). It could mean many places would need a lot more. But the result show me that it help them tremendously (Undp.org).  Ghana now has a universal access to pre-primary education but in 1999 their enrolment was only at 47%

• Hayden, M., Levy, J. and Johnson, J. (2015). The SAGE Handbook of Research in International Education. [online] Ebookcentral.proquest.com. Available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bcu/reader.action?docID=4813082 [Accessed 3 Jul. 2019].
• Ibrahim Farag Elbla, E. (2011). Issues and challenges related to access to quality basic education in Sudan. Ahfad Journal, 28(2), pp.1-3.
• Millennium Development Goals. (2017). Millennium Development Goals – MDGs. [online] Available at: https://www.mdgmonitor.org/millennium-development-goals/ [Accessed 2 Jul. 2019].
• Peace Insight. (2019). Peace education. [online] Available at: https://www.peaceinsight.org/themes/peace-education/ [Accessed 3 Jul. 2019].
• Rueckert, P. (2019). 10 Barriers to Education Around the World. [online] Global Citizen. Available at: https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/10-barriers-to-education-around-the-world-2/ [Accessed 2 Jul. 2019].
• Undp.org. (2010). [online] Available at: https://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/MDG/english/MDG%20Country%20Reports/Sudan/Sudan-MDG-Report-2010.pdf [Accessed 2 Jul. 2019].