Location: at the Berlin Representative Office, Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH Französische Straße 32, 10117 Berlin
Speaker(s):
  • Dr. Akiiki Babyesiza and Dr. Sarah Fichtner, Research Fellows at the Robert Bosch Academy

About

With an average age of 19, Africa’s population is currently the youngest and fastest-growing of all continents. Schools and universities are facing major challenges if they want to provide new generations with access to quality education in a context marked by scarcity of resources, insufficiently trained teachers and permanent reform cycles.

Although enrolment rates in primary education in sub-Saharan Africa have increased from 59 % to 79 % between 1999 and 2012, this improved access at the primary level has not necessarily translated into learning successes and opportunities for lifelong learning for all. Primary school dropout rates are the highest globally and the transition rate to secondary schoolingis only 64 % – compared with 94 % as the global average. Only five percent of the population is enrolled at university.

What does this context imply for educational institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa, for their everyday functioning, self-perceptions, societal meaning, political framing and economic purposes? What “quality-enhancing measures” are employed and by whom, with what intentions and based on whose recommendation, network and/or experience?

Based on input from two research projects funded by the Robert Bosch Academy, supplemented by contributions from invited discussants, one roundtable debate will focus specifically on the space for learner-centered pedagogy in curricular reforms, classroom practices and in-service teacher training in primary and secondary education in West and Central Africa. Another roundtable will deal with the vision and mission of research and knowledge transfer of public universities in Eastern and Southern Africa.

 

Registration for this event is closed.