No TEACHER GUIDE, No TEXTBOOKS, No CHAIRS:

No Teacher Guide, No Textbooks, No Chairs: Contending with Crisis in African Education'

Joel Samoff

The sense of excitement, hope, and anticipation in African education has been replaced by widespread dismay, disappointment, and discouragement. As the twentieth century closes, the general consensus is that education in Africa is in crisis. Africa has of course also been the site of imaginative experiments, innovations in the content and forms of education, and critical reflections on the role of education in society. Both long before Europeans arrived and to this day, Africa's intellectual contributions have had global influence. Still, the prevailing wisdom highlights crisis. After a period of rapid growth and dramatic progress, education in Africa, at all levels and in all forms, is in dire straits, we are told. With few exceptions, both schools and learning have deteriorated, and the situation is continuing to worsen. Roofs leak and wind blows through paneless windows. There are too few teachers to sustain expanded access, too many teachers have had little preparation, and very few teachers have opportunities to improve their skills. Universities have experienced stagnating or declining budgets and simultaneous pressures to increase enrollment. Libraries are outdated, laboratories poorly equipped, and funds for research nearly nonexistent. The need for action is urgent. The challenge is to revitalize education in Africa and to do so in ways that enable African countries not only to close the development gap but to leap ahead.

Notwithstanding imaginative responses to crisis and remarkable resilience in face of adversity, commentators see no end for the decay and disarray.

In the 1990s and beyond, institutions of higher education in Africa, especially the universities, must contend with several interrelated major problems, whose combined effect threatens to strangulate them. . . . . To say that higher education is in Africa is in crisis does not mean simply that the funds available to run higher education institutions are grossly inadequate .... More than that, African countries and societies are going through a period of econon‑dc uncertainty, political and social upheavals, plus other contortions, and higher education has become a victim of the prevailing state of affairs. The situation is likely to remain so, well into the twenty‑first century.1

How, then, to make sense of this transition from the expansive expectations of the immediate post‑colonial era to pervasive degeneration, from promise to progress to crisis? Like education itself, the analysis of education in Africa requires attention to both content and forms, and especially to context and process. In the remainder of this brief overview, let us explore major issues and themes in education in contemporary Africa.' My concern is draw on diverse sources to explore both outcomes and, more important, analytic frameworks.

"Education in Africa," like "African education," is of course a simplification fraught with risk. For most purposes, neither exists. With care, it is possible to study education in Guin6e or to explore the unique characteristics of, say, Ghanaian education. But where the diversity within countries is vast and where most countries are themselves of very recent origin, it is foolhardy to speak in general terms about a continent of more than 50 countries. Still, to identify and understand similarities and commonalities we must at times defer attention to individual variations. Hence, as we consider here shared patterns across Africa, we must at the same time constantly recall and respect Africa's rich diver. sity and consider carefully the bounding conditions for each general comment.

Education in Africa at the Century's End

The final decade of the twentieth century is a period of reflection and reevaluation for African development. The optimism of the decolonization of the late 1950s and early 1960s has been displaced by a deep dismay at persisting poverty and a profound pessimism about the viability of any strategy of social transformation. For many, the objective is no longer broad improvement in the standard of living or self‑reliance but simply survival.

Education, too, has experienced a similar transition. Earlier, education, formal and nonformal, was expected to be the principal vehicle for social change, both helping to define the new society and enabling its citizens to function effectively within it. Not only were the illiterate to be able to read and write, but they and other newly educated were also to foster innovation, to accelerate the generation and diffusion of ideas and technologies, and to monitor and manage a responsive political system. Education was also to be the vehicle for redressing discrimination and inequality, both in daily practice and in popular understanding.

There has been progress, in some countries very substantial achievements. Still, in much of Africa, many children get little or no schooling, illiteracy rates have ceased to decline or even risen, school libraries have few books, laboratories have outdated or malfunctioning equipment and insufficient supplies, and learners lack chairs, exercise books, even pencils. As I have noted, nearly all observers characterize contemporary African education as in crisis. Many, both inside and outside Africa, are pessimistic about the ability of national authorities to address the crisis effectively.

In this setting, recourse to foreign aid has become a way of life. Almost without exception, education reform proposals are presumed to require external funding. In some, perhaps many, countries, even the day‑to‑day operation of the education system is dependent on overseas support.

As the general crisis has unfolded, external aid agencies have increasingly cor‑, to provide development advice as well as finance. Notwithstanding its critical role, their funding remains a very .!est portion of total education expenditures. Consequently, their influence may be far greater than the absolute value of their aid suggests. Indeed, some agencies, and especially the World Bank, currently assert that their development expertise is even more important than their funds. "[The World Bank's] ... main contribution must be advice, designed to help governments develop education policies suitable for the circumstances of their countries.'

The increased reliance on foreign aid to support education innovation and reform has been accompanied by another transition, from a conception of education as a human right and general good to understanding education instrumentally, primarily in terms of its contribution to national growth through the development of the knowledge and skills societies are deemed to need. Occasional voices continue to insist that education is liberating and that learning is inherently developmental. Most often, however, education is regarded as distinctly instrumental, an investment in a country's future, a production system that (more or less successfully) turns out people with particular competencies and attitudes, and a delivery system that transfers wisdom, expectations, ways of thinking, and discipline to the next generation‑ As we shall see, these two currents‑on the one hand the expanded role for foreign aid and its providers and with it the tendency to address education through the prism and with the tools of finance and on the other understanding education primarily as preparation for work‑reinforce each other with enduring consequences for education in Africa.

Let us review briefly that trajectory, from education as social transformation, broad development engine, and foundation for self‑reliance to aid dependence and education as targeted skills formation.

Toward Education for All

For nearly all African countries, the starting point was an inherited education system that excluded most of the population. For education to transform society, therefore, the first task had to be to expand access, and to do so massively and rapidly. Indeed, expanded access had become both a popular demand of the anti‑colonial nationalist movement and a promise of the newly installed leadership. The premise was personal as well as political. Access to education was the primary route by which nearly all of Africa's initial leaders escaped, or rather mitigated, the discrimination and domination of European rule. Where there was a clear effort to reject race and other ascriptive criteria for employment and promotion, education's selection role became even more important. As well, opening schools in urban neighborhoods and rural villages was the most readily achievable and visible manifestation of the new government's accomplishments. The progress in this regard was indeed remarkable.

Unfortunately, before turn ing to the data on African education, we must recognize that the apparent precision provided by numbers is often fundamentally misleading. Put sharply, the margin of error on reported African educa tion data is often far larger than the observed variation. Hence, an apparent change over time‑say, in enrollment or public spending‑may not be a change at all.

Table 1 On Africa Education Statistics

SOURCE	PRIMARY GRoss ENROLLMENT Ratio (%)a SUB‑SAHARAN AFRICA
	1970	1980	1990
UNESCO, World Education Report 1991	46.3		76.2
UNESCO, World Education Report 1993		77.5	68.3
World Bank, Education in Sub‑Saharan.Africab	48.0	76.0
World Bank, African Development Indicators 1994‑1995		77.0	66.0
World Bank, World Development Report 1993b	46.0		68.0
World Bank, World Development Report 1995b	50.0
World Bank, World Development Report 1996c		80.0
World Bank, World Development Report 1997'		79.0

The problems are several. Available figures are often inaccurate, inconsistent, and not readily comparable. Schools, districts, and other sources provide incomplete and inaccurate information. Sources differ on periodization and on the specification of expenditure categories. Especially common are the confusion of budget and actual expenditure data and the comparison of budget figures in one year with expenditure reports in another. Recurrent and development (capital) expenditures are treated inconsistently. Often the available data do not include individual, family, local government, and direct foreign spending. Discussions of the cost of education in fact generally refer to government expenditures on education. Inflation, deflation, and exchange rates are treated inconsistently. Data series are frequently too short to be sure that observed variation reflects significant change.

One example of this problem must suffice as the caveat for the data that follow.6 How many children are in school? Or, more important, what percentage of the relevant age group is in school? Table 1 lists the primary gross enrollment ratio for Sub‑Saharan Africa (recall, available data generally exclude North Aftica) in 1970, 1980, and 1990 as re ported in several wide ly used sources. Notice that that the reported figure for for 1970 varies from46% to 50%-nearly a 9% difference –in diffrener edtion of the World bank’s own publication. Similarly, in this small sample, the reported figures for 1990 vary from 66% to 76% a 15% diffrence. What happened over those two decades? Did primary enrollment increase by two‑thirds (from 46% to 76%) or half that (a 32% increase, from 50% to 66%), or something in between? From the available data, we cannot be sure. What we can reasonably say is that fewer than half the school aged children were in school in 1970, that by 1980 progress had been substantial, with some three‑fourths in school, and that there had been a significant decline by 1990.

Table 2: Enrollment Growth, sub-Saharan Africa, 1960-1995

Millions and Percent						Growth since 1960 (1995 as % of 1960)
	1960	1970	1980	1990	1995	1960-1995
Primary	11.85	21.0	47.1	58.1	76.5	646%
secondary	0.79	2.6	8.1	11.9	18.8	2.380%
Tertiary	0.02	0.1	0.3	0.9	1.9	9.048%
Sources: for 1960, 1970, and 1980: World Bank, Education in Sub‑Saharan Africa. Tables A‑ 1, A‑2.and A‑4. for 1990: UNESCO, World Education Report 1993, Regional Tables 6, 7. and 8.for 1995: UNESCO, World Education Report 1998. Regional Tables 6, 7, and B.
Note: Forgiven years, UNESCO estimates are higher than corresponding World Bank estimates. Hence, while the expansion of enrollment is clear, the magnitude of that change may be somewhat less than suggested by this comparison of reported 1960and 1995 data.

The implications seem clear. First, it is essential to take seriously that margin of error, that is, to treat most national education statistics as rough approximations. Second, small observed changes may be more apparent than real. Even changes on the order of 5 ‑ 10% (or greater) may reflect nothing more significant than random fluctuations, annual variations, and flawed statistics. Consequently, apparent changes of that magnitude are a weak foundation for broad inferences and for public policy. Third, both researchers and policy makers must reject statistics whose underlying assumptions require a level of precision, or linearity, or continuity that the data do not reliably support. Finally, effective use of available data requires seeing through the facade of precision and demystifying the use of statistics. A profu. sion of numbers neither makes a particular interpretation more valid nor renders a policy proposal more attractive. Indeed, the numeric halo may well obscure far more than it reveals.

Duly cautious, let us consider the accomplishments. Primary school enrollments increased more than sixfold from 1960 to 1995 (Table 2). From very small starting points, secondary enrollments were 23 times greater in 1995 than in 1960, and tertiary 90 times larger. In societies where at the end of colonial rule less than a tenth of the population was deemed literate, illiteracy steadily declined (Table 3). Comparable figures for the number of schools opened, postsecondary institutions created, and new teachers recruited show similar substantial growth. Clearly, access to education expanded dramatically and rapidly.

Yet, those growth rates could not be sustained. Indeed, some measures showed important reversals where progress had seemed assured (Table 4). For many countries the primary enrollment ratio stagnated or even declined, one indication of the deterioration of public services and of the inability of governments to meet their commitment to move toward schooling for all their citizens. At the same time, the supporting infrastructure for the rapid expansion was also sorely stretched. In many places buildings were not maintained, crash teacher recruitment programs were not accompa. nied by in‑service professional development opportunities, low salaries forced teachers to look outside their classrooms to supplement their incomes, curriculum revision and textbook preparation proceeded slowly if at all, and morale plummeted. By the late 1980s African education was in crisis.

It is not uncommon to find a teacher standing in front of 80‑100 pupils who are sitting on a dirt floor in a room without a roof, trying to convey orally the limited knowledge he has, and the pupils trying to take notes on a piece of wrinkled paper using as a writing board the back of the pupil in front of him. There is no teacher guide for the teacher and no textbooks for the children7

For at least some countries the situation has continued to deteriorate, with a decline in the absolute number of children enrolled in schools. Overall, the proportion of Africa's school age children actually in school now is smaller than it was at the beginning of the 1980s.

Note, too, that access to education in Africa is substantially lower than in most other regions of the world' SubSaharan Africa's primary gross enrollment ratio in 1995 was 73.9%, compared to 99.1% for the Less Developed Regions as a group, 99.6% for the World, and 104.5% for the More Developed Regions. At the secondary level in the same year, Sub‑Saharan' Africa's gross enrollment ratio is half that of the Less Developed Regions: 24.3% (Sub,Saharan Africa), 48.8% (Less Developed Regions), 58.1% (World), and 105.8% (More Developed Regions). At the tertiary level the gaps are larger still: 3.5% (Sub~ Saharan Africa), 8.8% (Less Developed Regions), 16.2% (World), and 59.6% (More Developed Regions). Within Africa, the variation was large, for example at the primary level from 29% (Niger) to 135% (Malawi).

In 1990 governments and international and non‑governmental organ‑ nizations enthusiastically committed themselves to Education For All.9 Though it shared that commitment, indeed was and is one of its principal arenas of action, Africa found itself moving in the opposite direction. Far from an engine for social transformation, Africa's education systems found it increasingly difficult to provide even basic schooling.

Table 3 Estimated Adult literacy Rate, Sub-Saharan Africa, 1960-1990

Percent

1960

1970