Sydney Taylor
23 February 2020
760 million people are deprived of the fundamental right to an education. In particular, West African countries have the lowest education rates in the world. Millions are unable to obtain a proper education, preventing them from creating informed political opinions, improving their personal health and socioeconomic status. For centuries, government institutions in Ghana, Liberia and Mali lack proper educational funding. Poor financial backing coupled with low student enrollment rates result in unjust wages for millions of teachers. As literacy rates continue to decline, life expectancies for these youths diminish as well. West African countries lack the proper resources to create a more sustainable and functioning educational system, therefore, this region will forever lag behind their world-power counterparts. Due to these reasons, it is important to question why West Africa has the lowest education rates in the world. What does the gap between this region and the rest of the world say about the importance of human development itself? This project will focus on the different factors that separate West Africa from the rest of the world including societal shifts after the translatlantic slave trade, current socioeconomic issues that separate certain African countries from another, and the overall importance of child development.
Roser, Max, and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina. “Global Education.” Our World in Data, 31 Aug. 2016, ourworldindata.org/global-education.
The University of Oxford’s website, “Our World in Data” conducted numerous studies around the world. The overall purpose of these experiments were to further understand education rates and create proper human development methods. While this article does not focus on a particular region, the introduction mentions the vast difference in education rates between Sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world. As further analysis, the article focuses on three different aspects of education: the evolution, production and consequences. Literacy rates, school enrollment estimation, school-life expectancies, teacher attendance and government funding are all influence low levels of education. The article’s datasets represent the world’s need for equally accessible education. As population rates continue to increase, there is a significant need for resources to support these institutions. The lack of resources and funding in developing countries impacts the education opportunities among citizens.
Roser and Ortiz-Ospina, the two contributers to the article analyzed school enrollment and attendance. In order to properly test this, they used “literary questions in a sample survey and an extrapolation from statistics about school enrollment and educational attainment.” These methods provided accurate information about literacy rates regarding 111 countries worldwide. In addition, the graphs on this website can be modified to a particular country the reader wants to focus on. This allows the reader to analyze and compare multiple countries at the same time. The information collected is closely related to child development and overall function of the West African education system. The first graph shown in the article represents the literate and illiterate world population from the 1800 to 2016. In 1800s, about 87 percent of the world’s population was illiterate. Although by the 1950s, more than half of the world’s population could read and write. This significant improvement is represented by the historical impacts of human development. Many developed countries, including the United States, have instituted taxes and government funding to provide for public schools throughout the nation. But the countries in West Africa had a much different experience. As of 2016, 14 percent of the world’s population was still illiterate and many of these people were from Sub-Saharan Africa. The strong numerical differences between West Africa and the rest of the world can be further understood as the “missing ingredients” mentioned by Owen Barder in his discussion of Development and Complexity.
Obikili, Nonso. “The Impact of the Slave Trade on Literacy in West Africa: Evidence from the Colonial Era.” Journal of African Economies, vol. 25, no. 1, 2016, pp. 1–27.
West African countries have suffered the consequences of the horrific transatlantic slave trade. From the 16th to 19th centuries, millions of African men, women and children were violently captured by colonizers and forced onto boats headed towards the western hemisphere. The violent and unjust enslavement of Africans led to the transportation of nearly 10 percent of the population in central and western Africa. The enslavement of Africans not only affected the lives of millions, it ultimately changed the structure and development of the West African region forever.
Currently, West Africa has the highest illiteracy rate in the world. As of 2019, 40 percent of the current population can neither read nor write. In Obikili’s article, he discusses the effect of West African literacy rates and its negative correlation with slave trade exposure. The author questions whether the specific regions where trade exposure was significantly high experienced more socioeconomic issues after the colonial period. At the time of the slave trade, there were no national borders. So, Obikili believes that long-term effects of the slave trade may have been impacted through ethnic groups, not necessarily by country. Thereforce, Obikili focuses on two specific regions: Nigeria and Ghana. Both countries have the highest rates of literacy and ethnic fractionalism, or diversity, in West Africa. Obikili looks for a strong correlation between the two aspects of his research. The stronger the ethnic identity, the higher the education rate.
The slow development of West African countries compared to the rest of the world also explains the negative correlation between its lack of success and the intercontinental slave trade. Particularly in West Africa, there are low schooling rates, underdeveloped financial systems and distorted foreign exchange markets. These factors impact the overall development of children, affecting the success of the region as a whole. Furthermore, Obikili uses his research to understand the need for lifelong education and the promotion of equal opportunities. This emphasizes the Fourth Sustainable Developmental Goal. Throughout the article, he uses numerous graphs, charts and maps to explain literacy rates and slave export intensity.
“World Inequality Database on Education.” World Inequality Database on Education, UNESCO Institute of Statistics, www.education-inequalities.org/.
The World Inequality Database on Education (WIDE) describes the impact of socioeconomic factors that play a role in the global education rates. With an overall focus on the Fourth Sustainable Developmental Goal of education, literacy rates are documented in numerous countries by surveys. According to the website, WIDE uses “national household surveys and learning assessments from over 160 different countries.” The data collected from these surveys is documented and translated into charts, maps and infographics for public use. This information gives the reacher the opportunity to compare global educational enrollment. The website also focuses on the different factors that affect education rates in a particular region, including gender, location, wealth, and religion.
In West Africa, Ghana has the highest youth education rate. With a population of nearly 30 million, 57 percent is under the age of 25. About 98 percent of children are enrolled into primary school by the age of 4. Although, as time progresses only 42 percent of children complete primary school and 45 percent complete the upper secondary level. Even though Ghana has the highest education rates in Western Africa, it is still among the lowest in the world. For example, Liberia only graduates 11 percent of their students in primary school and 13 percent in their upper level schools. With a smaller population of about 5 million, they have a lesser chance of obtaining the same numbers as Ghana. But, their vast differences explain human development in poor countries. This article also uses unique visuals when comparing mulitple countries. The website uses line graphs with colored dots to represent the lowest and highest numerical datasets. The complex data is presented with a simplistic approach that provides this information to a universal audience.
“World Teachers Dat 2019 Fact Sheet.” UNESCO UIS, UNESCO Institute of Statistics, 3 Oct. 2019, uis.unesco.org/en/topic/teachers.
Teachers are vital to the Fourth Sustainable Developmental Goal of education. Teachers are vital classroom productivity and student development. This article emphasizes the importance of teaching positions and the lack of educational resources available throughout the world. According to the World Teachers’ Day fact sheet, in 2018 only 64 percent of primary and 50 percent of secondary school teachers in Sub-Saharan Africa are trained. Although, in 2015 the percentage of trained teachers was significantly higher. As more students continue to attend school, there is a higher demand for teachers. This high demand affects proper training methods among teachers. Therefore, poor regions must invest in their educators. This investment will not only improve the development of their students, but ultimately change their community for the better. Proper education leads to an improved economy and overall society. This article also emphasizes the importance of classroom conditions. In sub-saharan Africa alone, 34 percent of primary schools have electricity, while 44 percent have basic drinking water. The lack of resources in the school itself represents the struggles that millions students and teachers face. It is difficult to attend and work in a school that does not have the proper resources to maintain it. This lack of essential resources causes an increase in drop-out and a decrease in employment rates. These numbers affect the lack of education opportunities that separate West Africa from other world-powers like the United States.
While it is extremely difficult to provide proper training for teachers and money for school resources, it is important to recognize the factors that affect human development. This article gives more information about social issues that effect education rates, such as gender-sensitivity, diversity, workload accountability and teacher absenteeism. In order for West Africa to promote educational freedom, these factors must be considered. As the world population continues to increase, more people will enroll into schools all over the globe. Human development is making sure that people have access to education in the first place and have the ability to stay enrolled in school until upper secondary levels. As the world enters into a new decade, developing governments and institutions must understand that fundamental resources are required to provide the right resources for global education.
“New Methodology Shows That 258 Million Children, Adolescents and Youth Are Out of School.” Education in Africa , Http://Uis.unesco.org/En/Topic/Education-Africa, 13 Sept. 2019.
As education is the basis of human development, it is important that students are actually enrolled in school settings. This article provides a more detailed analysis of high rates of out-of-school children in the world. The UNESCO Institute for Statistics found that the Fourth Sustainable Development Goal has been very ineffective. This goal emphasized the need for equal accessibility to education for the assurance of future opportunities for all. The Fourth Goal was accepted by various institutions throughout the world, but the article states that it has been completely ineffective in the geographical regions that need it the most. In 2018, 258.4 million children were out-of-school around the world. This number is equivalent to about sixteen percent of the world’s current population of youth, children and adolescents. In figure 4 on page 8, the article analyzes the out-of-school rate by region and age group in 2018. Sub-Saharan Africa had the highest drop out rates by the upper secondary age. Similar to the rest of the world, drop out rates increase as time progresses. This means that there are global trends of high education rates in the primary age but it decreases as students get much older. This trend is significantly higher in Sub-Saharan Africa. On page 10, the article mentions that Mali has the highest out-of-school rate than any other country in West Africa.
This article also compares out-of-school rates in countries along with their income rates. According to Table 2 on page 12, about 32.4 percent of people are not in school. In high-income countries, about 3.5 percent of people are out-of-school. This significant difference in enrollment rates explains the importance of human development. As long as governmnet insitutions and data scientists are dedicated to helping the individual, these numbers will shift. The creators of this article understand that the basis of human development is social opportunity. If there are more possibilities for young students to have schools to enroll in, West Africa will have a much higher education rate overall. Data scientists throughout the world must use this information when creating policies and laws that impose on people from this region. The Fourth Sustainable Developmental Goal emphasizes this ideology. As long as young kids have schools to attend, education rates will rise. As education rates rise, overall social, political and economic opportunities will significantly improve.