Experts Give Reasons Africa’s Education System Needs Urgent Reforms

Experts at the Africa Business Convention have stressed a radical reform of the education system in Nigeria and Africa as a whole, particularly in terms of the curriculum and approach to learning,

This is required If the continent must produce a workforce with the right skill-set to drive industrialization and curb unemployment.

Founder Of Engagement Dynamics, Janet du Preez noted that though the 2020 Pandemic brought some disruption and change especially in digital learning, it was still inadequate.

“We need to think about the curriculum, we are so stuck in a particular way of delivering education. There is a strong argument for core curriculum, rapid and early specialisation.

“We have to get our population up to speed, to deliver a very high level of education and we need to do that very quickly, we can’t wait for 20 years for this to happen. We need a shift on how we learn, we need a project-based learning technology, an action-based learning. We need to capture the spirit of who we are in Africa,” du Preez said.

Director of the Dunning Africa Centre, Rajneesh Narula informed that the unemployment rate in Africa has increased, largely because the system keeps producing a workforce that is unemployable, lacking the appropriate skills for the 21st century.

Narula, while acknowledging that online learning is a good development in the education system, however pointed out that there is a limit to how much students can really learn digitally. According to him, some courses such as medicine and science cannot be effectively taught online . He also said that it is more time consuming and difficult to communicate online, hence, he advised that physical learning is still very key and focus should not remain on digital learning.

Vice president online, Champlain College also noted that there are still lingering challenges around access to Internet and infrastructure acrossAfrica to effectively maximize the opportunities that digital learning presents.

In her submission,  The executive director, Salma Private School, Jennifer Ekwueme disclosed that there is a gap in the quality of learning between private schools and public schools. This according to her will affect the quality of Nigeria’s workforce as private schools only constitute 10% of total schools.

Ekwueme urged private schools to adopt public schools especially in rural areas, and introduce digital technology, emotional intelligence and other advanced form of learning to give other children an equal opportunity.