African education systems are struggling

[Guest guest]

African education systems are struggling

U.S. and other nations provide little funding

Hanes

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Johannesburg , South Africa -- As she traveled through western Africa

last month, stopping at crowded clinics and impoverished classrooms,

Bush had a message: If this region of AIDS and poverty wants to

lift itself out of Third World woe, then more African girls need to

enroll in school. And if countries want their girls educated, then

something needs to be done about school fees, the money many children

here must pay to enter public classrooms.

" Sadly, too many children around the world do not have access to

education, " Bush said at the National Center for Women's Development

in Abuja, Nigeria. " Students who live in poverty have few

opportunities for schooling because their parents do not have the

money to pay their school fees or buy their uniforms and books. "

It was a familiar refrain. School fees in Africa have become an " it "

cause among Western politicians, activists and socially concerned

celebrities -- prompting excitement as well as skepticism among

educators in Africa.

Rock star Bono has criticized the fees as a barrier to education for

Africa's poor. Bill Clinton has said the one living person he'd like

to meet is Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, because Kibaki abolished

school fees in his country. In November, actress Angelina Jolie

lobbied Congress to fund initiatives that would do away with school

fees throughout Africa.

" New medicines are giving children with AIDS a chance at life, " she

told lawmakers, according to news reports. " So what are they supposed

to do with that life? Sit idle? Most of them have lost their parents

to AIDS and they're trying to raise themselves, they're trying to feed

themselves, and now they have to send themselves to school. We must

eliminate school fees. "

Education experts in Africa say they are thrilled by the new

attention. But they also say that talk is one thing, practice another.

Despite a lot of speeches about Africa's children, the United States

and other donor countries have provided scant funding for basic

education. And the challenges here are more complex than sound bites

suggest.

" The abolition of school fees -- it is critical, " said Changu

Mannathoko, UNICEF's education adviser for eastern and southern

Africa. " But it is a first step. Some people, they look at education

and think you can just fix it like you can vaccinate against polio.

But it is much more complicated. "

Across the developing world, governments charge school fees because

they cannot afford to fund schools themselves. Even in relatively

wealthy countries such as South Africa, schools need fee money for

basics such as electricity and pencils.

But those charges, although sometimes only $20 a year, can be

prohibitive in a region where millions live on less than a dollar a day.

In theory, there are waiver systems for the poorest children. But

advocates say uneducated parents often do not understand the

document-heavy process of school fee exemptions. And they say that

schools often pressure non-paying parents by expelling students or

withholding end-of-year grades.

Walk through a community such as South Africa's Soweto -- the

sprawling black township outside of Johannesburg -- and it's easy to

find complaints about school fees.

Lerato Mokgadi, a 22-year-old 12th grader, said her school would not

release her scores on a crucial graduation exam because her mother had

not paid fees. At another house, Orison Makhaluza, who has helped care

for his grand-nieces since their mother died last year, said the

little girls would have been barred from school if a local education

rights group hadn't gotten involved in their case.

" Education, it's the key to the future, " Makhaluza said, sitting in

his sister's sweltering concrete house, where he now lives. " But our

kids, they are told they cannot go to school. "

Over the past years, in response to local and international pressure,

a handful of African governments has gotten rid of school fees. In

each country, enrolment jumped.

In 2003, for instance, when Kenya's Kibaki made good on his campaign

promise of free primary education for all, enrolment grew from around

6 million to 7.2 million in a matter of weeks.

But even that is a mixed blessing. With the huge influx of students,

education systems have struggled to find teachers and pay for

supplies. Class sizes in some countries reached as high as 100

students per teacher.

" As soon as you remove user fees there's a massive expansion of

demand, " said Archer, the international head of education for

the development agency Action Aid. " In Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya, a

total of 8 million children went to school who had not gone to school

before. You need new teachers, need new classrooms; there are new

pressures on the system. "

UNICEF's Mannathoko said that governments also need to get services to

those vulnerable, newly enrolled children to keep them in school.

Feeding programs and health care are essential, she said.

But all of this, of course, costs money.

The World Bank estimates that to make universal free education a

reality, donors must give anywhere from $5.6 billion to $10 billion.

Currently, there's only about $2 billion for aid to basic education in

low-income countries worldwide.

President Bush has promoted an African Education Initiative, which the

administration says is a $600 million effort to provide scholarships,

textbooks and teacher training, in hopes of getting more children in

school. But critics say that there is almost no new money in that

package, and that the United States is well behind other nations when

it comes to giving education aid to poor countries.

At the Gleneagles summit last year, G8 countries promised a $50

billion aid package for Africa, with much of that going to education.

But many advocates wonder whether that package will ever be fully funded.

" Lots of promises were made last year, " Archer said. " And in terms of

public awareness, we've already won. Now we have to shift the focus to

the money, and how the money is used. "

Hanes is a freelance reporter based in South Africa. Contact

us at insight@...

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