By Peter Materu
In the wake of a
global pandemic that has disrupted schooling for millions while
accelerating regional trends toward digitalization and automation,
reforming secondary education systems has never been more urgent.
To
navigate the future of work, Africa's young people need access to
training that helps them develop the skills and competencies demanded in
the labour market. Yet even before the pandemic, employers reported
that young people lacked requisite skills, while national and
international assessments revealed persistently low levels of learning
in the region, despite near universal access to primary education. Now,
there are fears that school closures may set back learning even further,
particularly among vulnerable students, including young women and
girls, who are at risk of permanently dropping out of the system.
As we look forward
to schools re-opening, we should be thinking beyond a return to the
status quo. We need to make education systems accessible to more young
people, and more relevant to a dynamic labour market, ensuring we are
equipping young people with the skills they need to find, access, and
perform, or to create, dignified work. This will be key to driving
much-needed economic growth.
So what can we do? Mastercard Foundation' report, Secondary Education in Africa: Preparing Youth for the Future of Work,
offers some compelling guidance. Improving secondary education on the
continent is foremost about integrating work-relevant skills training.
That means developing young people's literacy and numeracy skills,
problem solving, critical thinking, communication, and digital
skills—such as how to make use of digital devices and communicate
online. This in turn means adjusting curricula and teacher training.
Reforms that infuse skills training into existing courses will help us
to tackle the impact of the pandemic and other global challenges such as
climate change, and enable future resilience in the face of crises.
But changing how
we offer secondary education to better respond to today's labor market
is not just about skills. It also means making education systems more
flexible and responsive to the needs of diverse youth. Flexibility in
the system can be created by providing pathways between technical and
general secondary and tertiary education, and offering the millions of
youth who left school early due to the need to work or care for a child,
opportunities to complete their education. Offering accelerated
programs or modular approaches to learning that are accredited and at
scale are two approaches to integrating flexibility at the system level.
And leveraging technology to these ends, through inclusive e-learning,
not only increases the available options for learners but offers the
possibility of reaching those who might otherwise not be able to
participate in a traditional face-to-face classroom.
Ultimately,
building high performing education systems is a decades long process,
but it can be done. Countries around the world and in Africa have
launched significant reforms with impressive results and we have learned
from their examples.
Research from these
efforts shows that successful reform starts at the top, with
demonstrated political will coupled with investment that spans years and
continues across successive administrations. Leaders must provide a
well-articulated vision for reform, and education ministries should
adopt clear plans and priorities. Importantly, governments must allocate
the resources needed by education systems to meet these targets.
Yet political will
and clear plans with financial backing are not enough. Successful
reform requires defined roles and responsibilities for all stakeholders
in the education system—everyone from ministry officials to school
district leaders, school principals and teachers. Yet those responsible
must have incentives to change. Rewards don't have to be monetary —they
can include public recognition of improvement, promotion, or access to
professional development training. Having both clear plans and the
incentives to implement them helps diverse constituencies align around
shared goals and become accountable for outcomes.
Rwanda in recent
years has implemented significant reforms, introducing a
competency-based curriculum that emphasizes using knowledge in the real
world. It also trained teachers to offer an innovative entrepreneurship
program in all secondary schools, helping youth to build business and
financial skills. Rwanda is not alone. Across Africa, the majority of
secondary school systems have introduced or plan to introduce
competency-based curricula. Many are embarking on additional reforms as
well and promising practices in the areas of curricula reform, teacher
recruitment and training, and the introduction of flexible pathways are
emerging.
As we re-think
education in light of the pandemic, there is a clear need for
innovation. In the last few months, we have seen that governments can
drive innovation at the national level. Looking forward, Ministries of
education can build on this momentum by creating an environment that
fosters innovation and signaling support for new thinking at the highest
levels. They can develop capacity to pilot, adapt and scale new
initiatives and programs, in collaboration with the private sector and
non-governmental organizations. Forging stronger links with the private
sector can also help ensure that learning is relevant to labor market
needs and scale up successful models across school systems.
Now is the time to
invest in and commit to reform and innovation in our secondary school
systems. Allowing youth to develop the skills they need for the future
or work will increase their productivity, helping to drive economic
growth and harness the potential benefits of a demographic dividend. The
young people we educate today will solve the global challenges of
tomorrow—whether that is how best to sequester carbon, develop new
agricultural techniques, or create a vaccine to stop the next global
pandemic.
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