Executive Council (1)

EXECUTIVE
COUNCIL
ENSURING EQUITABLE ACCESS TO
PRIMARY EDUCATION IN SUB-SAHARAN
AFRICA

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Table of Contents
Letter from the Chairperson ........................................................................................................................... 2
About the African Union Executive Council.............................................................................................3
Statement of the Issue....................................................................................................................................... 4
Current State of Primary School Enrolment in Sub-Saharan Africa ............................................8
Case Studies..............................................................................................................................................................9
Niger ...................................................................................................................................................................9
Ghana ................................................................................................................................................................10
Democratic Republic of Congo ...............................................................................................................12
Potental Solutions to Addressing Low School Enrolment .............................................................13
Evening Classes for Girls.............................................................................................................................13
Partnership with International Organizations ....................................................................................13
School Feeding Programmes ...................................................................................................................13
Conclusion ..............................................................................................................................................................14
Questions a Resolution Should Answer....................................................................................................15
Bibliography...........................................................................................................................................................17
© African Leadership Academy Model African Union 2015
Authored by Rim Bettaieb and Faith Abiodun

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Letter from the Chairperson
Dear Delegates,
My name is Rim Bettaieb, and it is my pleasure to welcome you to African Leadership Academy
Model African Union 2015, as the Chairperson of the African Union Executive Council.
This study guide has been designed to help you better understand the challenge of lack of
equitable access to primary education in Sub-Saharan Africa, before you dive into the research
process. The guide covers a number of points that will enable you to sense the complexity of
the situation and understand why a great of number of initiatives to eradicate this problem
have failed.
Huge amounts of money and effort have been invested in ensuring that every child in the
world has access to a certain level of education, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. However,
there is the possibility that the different governments and international NGOs that have
designed these solutions have not fully grasped the multi-faceted nature of the challenge at
hand. Their solutions have proven to be unsustainable. My aim is for you to learn about the
different elements that play a role in preventing millions of children across the African
continent from getting basic education and to develop a sustainable solution to the problem.
This guide has been divided into a number of sections: the first section presents an overview
of the challenge of providing access to primary education across the world, with a specific
focus on sub-Saharan Africa, and the second section presents the current state of school
enrolment in the region. The third section presents case studies of some African countries and
how certain factors are responsible for the large number of out-of-school children in those
countries. The fourth section then provides you with some examples of solutions that have
been implemented in different parts of the continent to improve school enrolments. Finally,
the study guide is wrapped up with key questions to consider as you prepare to work with
other delegates to develop sustainable solutions to this pressing challenge.
Please do not limit yourself to the points highlighted in this study guide and do not hesitate
to dive deeper in your research.
I am looking forward to meeting you all in March!
Best of luck with you research.
Rim Bettaieb
Chairperson, Executive Council
ALAMAU 2015

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About the African Union Executive Council
The Executive Council of the African Union (AU), formed in 2002, is one of the central organs
of the AU, composed of ministers of Foreign Affairs or other such ministers or authorities
designated by the governments of member states. The Council coordinates and takes
decisions on policies in areas of common interest to the member states, and is responsible to
the Assembly of Heads of State and Government. The Council considers issues referred to it
by the Assembly and monitors the implementation of policies formulated by the Assembly.
The Executive Council makes decisions on issues in the areas of:
i. Foreign Trade
ii. Social Security
iii. Food
iv. Agriculture, and
v. Communications
Other functions of the Executive Council include:
i. Promoting cooperation and coordination with the regional economic organizations,
the African Development Bank (ADB), other African institutions and the United Nations
Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).
ii. Determining policies for cooperation between the Union and Africa’s partners, and
ensuring that all activities and initiatives regarding Africa are in line with the objectives
of the Union.
iii. Ensuring the promotion of gender equality in all programmes of the Union.

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Statement of the Issue
“Every person: child, youth and adult shall be able to benefit from educational opportunities
designed to meet their basic learning needs”. These were the opening words of the World
Declaration on Education for All at the conclusion of the World Conference on Education for
All held in Jomtien, Thailand from March 5-9, 1990. The conference brought together 1,500
delegates from 155 countries and representatives of about 150 governmental, non-
governmental and intergovernmental organizations who concluded that education as a global
right which was the key to opening up many more opportunities for members of society. All
participants resolved to work together to ensure that every child everywhere had access to
educational opportunities.
From June 16-19, 1996, 250 decision makers from 73 countries met in Amman, Jordan at the
Mid-Decade Meeting on Education for All to assess the progress made since the Jomtien
conference, and this was again succeeded by the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal
held from April 26-28, 2000 at which 164 governments adopted the Dakar Framework for
Action to ensure that the world meets the Education for All (EFA) targets by 2015. The six
internationally agreed goals are:
i. Goal 1: Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education,
especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children.
ii. Goal 2: Ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children in difficult
circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to, and complete,
free and compulsory primary education of good quality.
iii. Goal 3: Ensuring that the learning needs of all young people and adults are met
through equitable access to appropriate learning and life-skills programmes.
iv. Goal 4: Achieving a 50 per cent improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015,
especially for women, and equitable access to basic and continuing education for all
adults.
v. Goal 5: Eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005,
and achieving gender equality in education by 2015, with a focus on ensuring girls’ full
and equal access to and achievement in basic education of good quality.
vi. Goal 6: Improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all
so that recognized and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially
in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills.
The establishment of these goals coincided with the establishment of the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000. The second
MDG (MDG2) was “to ensure that by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike will be
able to complete a full course of primary schooling”. In essence, both the EFA goals and MDG2
were geared towards the same objective – ensuring that children all over the world, including
sub-Saharan Africa had equitable access to primary education and were on course to complete
schooling.

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There is however a different reality on the ground in sub-Saharan Africa. In spite of the many
conferences, goals, targets and promises made, children all around sub-Saharan Africa are still
unable to access schooling for several reasons. It is estimated that sub-Saharan Africa
accounts for 47% of the 58 million out-of-school children worldwide, 54% of them being girls.
Not only is it difficult for children to access primary education, progression to secondary and
post-secondary education is equally difficult as only 20% of enrolled school children are
estimated to complete secondary education and only 6% of them complete post-secondary
education. The numbers becloud the progress that has been made since 1990 when the world
prioritized access to primary education, as there was a reported 90% school enrolment in
developing regions worldwide in 2010, up from 82% in 1999. However, one in ten children of
primary school age worldwide were still out of school in 2012, and this number rises sharply
to one in five within sub-Saharan Africa.
Several factors have been identified as being responsible for the low enrolment rates in schools
across Africa. A World at School, a global education advocacy organization identifies 10 key
reasons why children may not be in school:
i. They are girls
In a country like Somalia, only 36% of girls go to school. The numbers are even worse in
some other regions of Africa where girls are unable to go to school for cultural, poverty
or security reasons. If the world continues at the current rate, it is estimated that the
poorest girls will only be able to finish primary school in 2089.
ii. They live in war zones
In a country like South Sudan, hundreds of thousands of school-age children are unable
to attend schools because of decades of conflict which has left the country in shambles,
just as it is in the Democratic Republic of Congo. UNICED estimates that about 48.5
School girls in Mogadishu, Somalia. Source: UNICEF/Delfosse

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million children worldwide are missing school because of wars and conflict, and
countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone and Rwanda have been sore testaments to this reality.
iii. They have disabilities
Across the world, about 150 million children live with disabilities, and 80% of them are
in developing countries. In many societies of Africa, children living with disabilities are
unfairly excluded from daily activities of their peers, including schooling. The challenges
of including them in schooling include transportation and cognition because most
countries, specifically in Africa, do not have policies or programmes that are inclusive in
nature.
iv. Their countries are poor
Many developing countries, including African countries, struggle to finance education
because of competing interests. In spite of the fact that education is evidently and
unarguably one of the fastest and most reliable tickets out of poverty, education
investment often receives insufficient budgetary allocations in many countries.
v. They are engaged in child marriages
In many societies like northern Nigeria, girls are often betrothed before the age of 18,
which adversely affects their schooling. Unfortunately for the girls who drop out of
school, because of their limited education, they are ill-equipped with the right skill sets
to enable them become productive members of society, thus leading their families into
prolonged years of poverty.
vi. They are caught in disaster-stricken societies
Unfortunate occurrences like the outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa have
restricted more than 3.5 million children in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone from going
to school for an entire year. Neighbouring countries like Nigeria were also forced to
close down schools for several weeks to avoid the spread of the virus, thus halting the
education of several million children.
Source: Global Business Coalition for Education

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vii.Their schools have no teachers
There is a current deficit of 5.2 million teachers worldwide, and this deficit is more acutely
felt in rural areas, meaning that the attainment of the goal of universal primary education
is almost impossible at the current rate. The lack of qualified teachers is partly
responsible for the reality that one in five children leaving schools in sub-Saharan Africa
are unable to read and write.
viii. They are child labourers
Of the estimated 168 million child labourers in the world, several are employed in the
agricultural, mining and service sectors in Africa. Countries like the Democratic Republic
of Congo and Sierra Leone are reputed to have huge populations of child labourers,
which also accounts for their high population of out-of-school children.
ix. They are exposed to poor sanitation
The lack of sanitary facilities in schools has been identified as a major impediment to
school enrolment for girls in Africa. Girls who are menstruating often find schooling an
uncomfortable option because of water shortages, lack of sanitary disposal facilities and
unwarranted sexual advances from boys. About 55% of schools in low-income countries
are said to be ill-equipped with proper sanitary facilities.
x. There are insufficient schools
Across the world, an estimated 400 million children learn in poor conditions, often
without a desk, and 95 million of them are in sub-Saharan Africa. In essence, there are
insufficient schools across sub-Saharan Africa, and where they exist, they are ill-equipped
for proper learning. Several children learn under trees and in all sorts of weather-
dependent environments which then makes learning inefficient.
Source: buildOn

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With all the impediments to guaranteeing optimal and equitable access to primary education
in sub-Saharan Africa, it is necessary to underline the extreme importance of getting children
educated. In its 2013/2014 Education for All Global Monitoring Report, the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) underscored the fact that in spite
of its existence as a fundamental human right, education “imparts knowledge and skills that
enable people to realize their full potential, and so it becomes a catalyst for the achievement
of other development goals”. It goes further to state that education “reduces poverty, boosts
job opportunities, fosters economic prosperity, increases people’s chances of leading healthy
lives deepens the foundations of democracy and changes attitudes to protect the environment
and empower women”. The importance of education cannot be overemphasized, as the gaps
observed in societies where education isn’t prioritized are far too evident.
The education of girls has particularly been identified as a potential transformative engine for
the world, with an estimation that besides its power to boost their own chances of getting
jobs, staying healthy and participating fully in society, educating girls and women can help to
improve the health of children and stabilize population growth. The scourge of child marriage
is one which continues to plague the world, but education can be a solution; it is estimated
that if all girls completed primary school in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia, the
number of girls getting married before the age of 15 will drop by 14%, and 64% fewer girls
will get married with secondary education. In a continent where one in seven girls gets
pregnant before the age of 17, completing primary education could reduce the rate of teenage
pregnancies by 10% and secondary education could further reduce the rate by 59%.
Current State of Primary School Enrolment in Sub-Saharan Africa
When the United Nations announced the Millennium Development Goals in 2000, there was
an expectation that all children, boys and girls alike, will be on course to complete primary
education by the end of 2015. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa have made much progress
towards achieving the goal; enrolment rates in the region have more than doubled from 62
million in 1990 to 149 million in 2012. However, compared to 2000, there are 35% more African
children to accommodate in schools; a whopping 33 million children in Africa are still out of
school, of which 56% are girls. This is due to the rapid population growth around the continent.
While the continent continues to register impressive net enrolment numbers, the continent
again lags behind in school completion rates, with the worst rates in the world (28% of
countries with data report less than 60% completion rates).
Twenty five of the 39 African countries with data reported net enrolment ratios of 80% or
above between 2000 and 2013 and are on course to meet MDG2, having implemented school
retention programmes like school feeding programmes, tuition-free education and donation
of free school uniforms among other initiatives. In Rwanda, the government implemented a
fee-free regime for the first nine years of basic schooling, which was later extended to 12 years,
resulting in an increase in net enrolment ratios from 86.6% in 2005/2006 to 95.9% in
2010/2011. The government of Ghana has expanded its focus to pre-primary education,
mandatory primary school expansion and the improvement in the school feeding programme
which then yielded 81.7% growth in net enrolment by 2012.

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Only 11 African countries have net enrolment rates below 75%, in spite of the considerable
effort that has been exerted in these countries (Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Cote
d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Gambia, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria and Niger). For
instance, Burkina Faso increased its net enrolment from 25.3% in 1990 to 64.5% in 2012, while
Niger improved from 24.3% to 65.7% within the same period. However, Liberia faces
significant challenges in attaining the target due to budgetary constraints and the high cost
of purchasing school materials, having declared free education for school-age children.
Case Studies
There are several obstacles to ensuring equitable access to education in sub-Saharan Africa.
Contrary to the dominant idea that the lack of schools solely explains the low school enrolment
rate in the region, there are other factors enumerated below which are equally significant in
different countries:
Niger
Factor: Gender and Early Marriage
For every 100 women in Niger, 85 do not have the basic skills of reading and writing. In this
landlocked country, literacy rates go up to 42.9% for men while they don’t exceed 15.1% for
women. The country is predominantly Muslim (80% of the population) and only 17.8% of the
total population in Niger lives in urban areas. The Nigerien society is also very tribal. These
factors combined create a restrictive environment for women who are assigned limited social
tasks like reproduction and house holding.
In 2012, girls in Niger had an average of 5 years of school before dropping out which reflects
the lack of opportunities they face in their society. Growing up within a patriarchal society,
most girls in Niger do not have much to say about their education and future. Most parents,
or fathers, do not see the relevance of sending their girls to school and decide to rather keep
Percentage increase in school enrollment around the world. Source: United Nations

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their daughters at home until they receive a good marriage proposal and move to the next
stage of their life. The minimum legal age for a girl to marry in Niger is 15 but girls are
frequently married off by the age of 12 in rural areas. According to the UN, 4 out of 5 girls get
married before the age of 18 in Niger. Early and forced marriage is very common in Niger but
the phenomenon has witnessed a wide increase since the 1990’s as poverty increased in the
country and “selling girls” for marriage has become a common practice, especially in the North
of the country. Some fathers go even against allowing their daughters any schooling with the
arguments that educating girls will make them hard to control and will introduce rebellious
thoughts in their minds like the idea of independence from their father or husband.
Because of these mentalities that deny women the right to an equal education to men, and
treats them as unable to live without depending on a man, most girls do not go to school in
Niger. Even if they do, most of them end up dropping out very early, before even completing
their primary education. Women in Niger, and in many other African countries like South
Sudan, Mali, Chad and Ethiopia struggle with opportunities to earn a living in their countries
because of such issues. Their lack of education keeps them dependent on men and unable to
achieve equality with men as long as they are unable to be financially independent.
In some of these countries, policies make it worse for women to access education. Whether it
is because there are no policies in place to prevent early marriages or make education
compulsory for all or because the policies in place give authority to men over women, they are
factors that contributes in taking away the right to education from little girls who are not given
the chance to decide who they want to be in the future.
Ghana
Factor: Child Labour
The International Labour Organizations recently published a report on Child Labour in Africa
placing Sub-Saharan Africa second in the list of regions with the greatest incidence of children
in economic activity in the world. The sub-Saharan Africa region accounts for 28.4% of the
children between 5 to 14 years old economically active - contrasting with 14.8% in Asia and
the Pacific and 9% for Latin America. Currently, 58.2 million children in that same age group
are working. What places the region in an even worse situation is that 38.7 million children
between the ages of 5 and 17 are caught in hazardous forms of child labour, ranging from
small-scale mining, hazardous work in agriculture, industry and services, informal economy,
commercial sexual exploitation and domestic labour.
Ghana happens to rank first among the sub-Saharan African countries with high child labour
rates with 43.5% of children aged 5-14 in Ghana working, according to a 2010 report by the
United States Department of Labour. Many of these children combine work and school, and
some of them work to pay school fees. Rural areas are more affected by child labour than
urban areas. 11.1% of children in urban areas do some type of work as against 36% in rural
areas. These children are employed in different sectors. Seven out of ten working children aged
5-14 years are employed in the agricultural sector, 6.4% are employed in the industrial sector
and the remaining 22.6% work in the services sector.
Economically active children are less likely to attend school than those who are not working
(59.7% vs. 86.5 %). This is due to direct reasons like time but also indirect ones like the

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opportunity cost of studying instead of working. If a child works during the day, chances are
that he or she will not find the time to go to school or will have to miss a considerable number
of classes in order to earn a minimum amount of money. Because of this, the child/student will
have to catch up with what he or she has missed which will require extra time and efforts. The
child will be too tired from work to catch up on school work and this starts a cycle of
dependence on work and disconnection from school life as it becomes easier for the child to
earn money to survive than to go to school. In addition to this, school fees, which are often a
burden for the child and his/ her family, will appear as one more reason for the child to remain
at work and quit school. Statistics have shown that among all children aged between 10 and
14 years old, only 63.2% of economically active children attend school as opposed to 91.7% of
non-working children.
Also, some girls in the Greater Accra and Volta regions of Ghana are involved in Trokosi, a form
of ritual servitude that can last from a few months to several years. Girls are sent by their
families to local shrines to atone for their family members' sins. They perform tasks such as
fetching water, maintaining the shrines, and working on the priest's land. Their basic needs
often go unmet, and they frequently suffer sexual and physical abuse. Trokosi is one of the
main factors that keep girls out of school in Ghana.
Another issue that appears to force children out of school in Ghana is the trafficking of children
to work in the fishing industry. NGOs have reported between 4,000 and 10,000 children
trafficked and enslaved on Lake Volta at any given time. From the age of four years old, these
children are forced to work as bonded labourers in Ghana’s fishing industry. What is even more
shocking is that because many families cannot cover the costs related to sending their children
to school, they would send them to work in the fishing industry where these family believe
their sons will learn an alternative skill to reading and writing, which is trade.
A child labourer working on a cocoa farm in Ghana. Source: www.modernghana.com

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Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
Factor: Political Violence and Recruitment of Child Soldiers
UNICEF defines a ‘child soldier’ as any child – boy or girl – under 18 years of age, who is part
of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity, including, but
not limited to: cooks, porters, messengers, and anyone accompanying such groups other than
family members. It includes girls and boys recruited for forced sexual purposes and/or forced
marriage. The definition, therefore, does not only refer to a child who is carrying, or has carried,
weapons. (Based on the ‘Cape Town Principles’, 1997).
UNICEF estimates that around 300,000 children - boys and girls under the age of 18 - are
currently involved in more than 30 conflicts worldwide. Over the last 10 years, the use of child
soldiers has spread to almost every conflict area in the world. African countries like Somalia,
Rwanda, Uganda, Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of Congo, well known for
their political instability and ongoing violence, have become grounds for recruiting these child
soldiers.
After the war officially ended in 2002 in the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu in DRC,
the national army and a range of Congolese and foreign armed groups have continued
fighting and have been recruiting boys and girls for use in these hostilities for purposes
including, but not limited to, fighting.
It has been estimated that one in ten child soldiers - or 30,000 children - are found in the DRC.
Even though the government of the DRC and the United Nations officially committed to
ending the recruitment and use of children by Congolese armed forces and security services
by signing an Action Plan, the UN believes that 15-30% of all newly-recruited combatants in
the DRC army are under 18 years old.
Many former child soldiers are unable to return to their homes because they might not have
any family left, be rejected by their remaining family members for having become murderers
or because their family wants to protect them from the community’s anger for having killed
other people’s family members. Not being able to get back a safe and stable life prevents
these children victims of conflicts from getting an education. In the majority of cases, children
were abducted and forced to join the groups but some children willingly join armed groups
after having been promised money, education, jobs and other benefits by recruiters. These
recruits are ironically thrown in a world of violence for the sake of surviving and not dying out
of hunger, especially if there is no one else in their family to look after them. They are used as
porters, cooks, spies, sex slaves, guards and combatants. These children are exposed and
forced to commit such atrocities that take them miles away from any normal path a child
should follow. They get caught in a cycle of violence that takes away from them every desire
to live or dream. Once a child is recruited to be part of an armed force, he or she is likely to
never go back to school again. In fact, because child soldiers are out of school while in an
army, their chances of leaving that environment are very slim because they will not have the
basic skills of reading and writing that will help them find a substitute to being soldiers.

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Potential Solutions to Addressing Low School Enrolment
Evening Classes for Girls
In Lagos, Nigeria, Action Health Inc., a non-governmental organization, started offering
evening classes accessible to out-of-school adolescents to allow them to balance their
education and household responsibilities or work. Considering that it is harder to convince
low-income families to send their children, especially girls, to school instead of sending them
to work or perform household chores, Action Health Inc. came up with a different option that
would allow these young girls to still get an education while working or taking care of their
homes.
Partnerships with International Organizations
After a long period of political instability, the Congolese government decided to rebuild the
country’s educational system by joining the Global Partnership for Education in June 2012. By
joining the GPE, DRC received a program implementation grant of $100 million in November
2012. The aim of this partnership is “to abolish the costs that have made primary education
unaffordable for millions of families” (Global Partnership for Education). For this, the Congolese
government agreed to increase its domestic budget for education to 15% by 2015.
Note: DRC’s domestic educational budget went from almost nothing in 1980 to 9.5% in 2011
and more than 14% in 2013.
School Feeding Programs by the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative
The UN in cooperation with the World Food Programme has started school feeding programs
to attract children to school and keep them from dropping out. The programme aims to create
an incentive for families who cannot feed their children to send them to school to ensure that
they get at least one proper meal during the day. “In 2003, WFP fed more than 15 million
children in schools in 69 countries.” (UNGEI). So far, 20 of the countries benefiting from the
school feeding programs have started functioning independent from the UN.
A school feeding programme in Rwanda. Source: http://apf-rwanda.ning.com/

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Conclusion
Among all children who are denied the right to a primary education, poverty is a recurring
theme. Lack of access to primary education in Sub-Saharan Africa could easily be interpreted
as a result of a lack of money. However, that is only the tip of the iceberg. As is evident through
the different case studies, there isn’t only one reason behind the issue of children not going
to school. Behind every child unable to pay school fees and behind every authority unable to
raise enough funds to build schools or pay teachers, there is a deeper problem. The issue is
more complex than it appears and that could perhaps explain why, despite the considerable
funds different international organizations and philanthropists have disbursed to help the sub-
Saharan African population access education over the past decades, no sustainable solution
has been reached yet. One can heal the symptoms but might not get rid of the disease. Some
children might get scholarships to cover their school fees but still be unable to attend school.
That is why there is a need to identify the root causes of the problem before putting forward
any action steps.
There are clearly more reasons than gender, child labour and political violence keeping
children across the African continent from going to school. Notice that these reasons inter-
connect. They are not independent from each other. The relations between these factors must
be considered when designing a solution to ensure every child in Africa has access to primary
education.

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Questions a Resolution Must Answer
1. The rapid population growth of the continent means that sub-Saharan African countries
will continually have increasing numbers of children to educate. There is a possibility that
the number of children will outpace the availability of resources to provide a quality
education for all across Africa. What should be the African Union’s approach towards
finding a sustainable balance between population growth and providing education
opportunities?
2. The education of girls has been a major concern in several sub-Saharan African societies,
especially societies in which cultural practices like early marriages and child labour have
prevented girls from attending schools. What practical initiatives can the African Union
and its member states adopt to change these cultural mind-sets and ensure equal access
to education across the continent for boys and girls?
3. 50% of children in Chad, Eritrea, Central African Republic and Angola who enrol in
schools are not completing primary education, either because those countries are
recovering from years of conflict or because of the protracted negative effects of the
recent global financial crisis. What can be done to ensure adequate financial support to
cover current expenditures while making room for improvement of quality of education
in these countries?
4. What roles can the private sector play in providing investment in education, especially
in post-conflict countries that struggle to meet the financial demands of schooling?
What are the practical initiatives including Public-Private Partnerships that can be
adopted in countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone to ensure that schools are built and
equipped to meet the growing demand for education?
5. Children living in war zones are often the worst victims of the outcomes of the wars as
their schooling is halted for the duration of the war. Even after the conclusion of many
wars, rebuilding schools and gathering resources to resume education are often very
difficult tasks. Are there practical steps that can be taken to ensure that the education of
children is protected in conflict zones? A child who loses on year of education might
never return to school. What can be done to safeguard the futures of these children?
6. Children living with disabilities are often excluded from regular life in societies, including
loss of access to educational opportunities. Discrimination against children living with
physical disabilities is a particularly prevalent issue in sub-Saharan Africa where there are
inadequate systems for supporting people living with physical disabilities. What
approaches can be adopted to ensure equitable access to education for children living
with physical disabilities? How will these initiatives work in current African societies?
7. The cost of constructing, equipping and managing schools is often prohibitive for many
societies, and many governments in Africa are unable to prioritize education in their
national budgets. What low-cost/technological strategies can be adopted to support the
education of children across Africa, especially in rural areas? What strategies have proven
successful in other parts of the world that can be considered in Africa?
8. Child labour is prevalent in several societies in sub-Saharan Africa, with many children
being caught up in hazardous labour. Children who have to work to sustain their families

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are very unlikely to pursue educational objectives at the same time. In essence, millions
of children in Africa are not on course for education because of their other obligations.
What can be done to address the issue of child labour in relation to education? What
innovative strategies have proven successful in either allowing children to work and
school, or suspend work for school? What role can the African Union and its member
states play in helping all children gain access to education?
9. Terrorist activities have recently become a major impediment to education in some parts
of sub-Saharan Africa. The recent activities of Boko Haram in Nigeria have led to the
closure of many schools and the hesitance of many families to allow their children seek
educational opportunities. In cases like this, what can be done to ensure that the
education of children is not halted because of the nefarious activities of terrorists?
10. Health crises like the spread of the deadly Ebola virus have resulted in children in Liberia,
Guinea and Sierra Leone losing at least one year of schooling. Unpredictable crises like
natural disasters also have the potential to derail the education of millions of children in
Africa. What procedures can be developed to mitigate the effects of crises on the
education of children? How can governments, international NGOs and the private sector
work together to ensure that education is never threatened when unwarranted situations
arise?
11. There are millions of child soldiers who are right now caught in difficult situations; being
unable to return home to start/continue their education and facing desperate futures
with little or no hope. What efforts can the international community exert to rescue these
children from their situations and guarantee their education, so that no child in Africa is
left behind?

17 | P a g e
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