The African Union Commission and its member states, UN development partners, civil society organisations, religious and traditional leaders, youth associations and other educational stakeholders recently, are increasing their commitment to promoting equitable and universal access to education across the African continent. Educated girls at school are contributing to the economic emergence of the continent. However, early child marriages, early pregnancies, and gender based violence has contributed to gender disparities in education pushing renewed commitment, policy development and reinforcement of action plans by the African union Commission and education stakeholders to ensure equitable, quality and Universal access to education in Africa.
The African continent accounts for 38 per cent of the world’s out-of-school children.Sub-Saharan Africa in particular, has the highest rates of school exclusion of any region in the world. More than a fifth of children aged between 6 and 11 do not go to school. This figure rises to a third of young people aged 12 to 14, and almost 60% of young people aged 15 to 17 do not attend school according to UNESCO. Faced with this situation, the African Union Commission in collaboration with other educational stakeholders are committed to promoting equitable and universal access to education in Africa.
« We want to see how we can accelerate because we know that COVID has set us back, we know that the current crisis, geopolitical tensions and conflicts on the continent have also set us back, so we want to see how we can come back and accelerate even more the results for girls’ and women’s education. So we want to see how we are going to come back and accelerate even more the results for girls’ and women’s education. In doing so, we are also interested in the boy, because it will have to be sustainable for girls and boys, so as to reinforce programmes such as the fight against gender-based violence and other less good results that still affect the education of girls and women on the continent ».
Monique Nsanzabaganwa, Vice-Chairperson of the AU Commission – Rwanda
Inequality between girls and boys, men and women particularly in the education sector remains a major challenge in achieving the African union agenda 2063 aspiration 6 and the United nation sustainable development goal 4. Today, 32.6 million girls of primary or lower secondary school age are not enrolled in school in sub-Saharan Africa. To alleviate this problem, the African Union Commission among its strategies organized the first African Union Pan-African Conference on Girls’ and Women’s Education (AU-PANCOGEd1) at the AU’s headquarter in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 2 to 5 July 2024 through its specialized institution, the African Union’s International Centre for Girls’ and Women’s Education in Africa(AU CIEFFA) with a view to ensuring equitable access to quality education particularly in humanitarian situations.
“We expect to raise awareness of our policy makers, of our decision Makers around having gender sensitive policies at country level and making sure that you’re implementing them not only by taking the regulation or acting the law without enacting it properly because it is easy to sign a regulation or a law but also easy to forget it”.
Mohamed Belhocine, AU Commissioner for Education, Technology and Innovation – Algeria
Although promoting education for girls, women, boys and men is at the heart of the African Union’s CIEFFA, the African Union commission in general, UN development partners, civil society organizations and other NGOs on education, ignorance, early child marriages and gender-based violence, are some of the factors still hindering universal access to education on the African continent.These out-of-school children represent a significant proportion of the continent’s future generation.
“While we are reaching the UN agenda 2030 and also the AU agenda 2063 but before those agenda we have the African continental strategy in education which we usually call the CESA. The continental education strategy which started in 2016 and will end very soon in 2025 and there’s a gender equality strategy to this CESA and this gender equality strategy was aiming to bring the gender dimension within the continental strategy. Most has been done, a lot has been done but they’re still barriers, obstacles are still there and when you look at those barriers, those obstacles you will see through the presentations that were made yesterday that they are many”.
Simone YANKEY-Ouattara , Acting Coordinator of the African Union CIEFFA – Côte d’Ivoire
Advocating for girls and women education in Africa has also been a focal point in bridging gender disparities in Education. According to Statistics from UNESCO women are overrepresented in humanities, social sciences, and care work, and account for only 35% of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) tertiary education graduates. High-level dialogues on gender equality in education, the AfricaEducateHer campaign, the Continental Strategy for Education in Africa (CESA)among other strategies have played crucial roles in improving this situation.
“The best investment you can give to anybody is education and that is what has inspired my work I have worked in women and girls education all my life and I want to say I have touched many lives, I’ve changed and shaped the futures of many girls and that me as a proud African woman
Martha Muhwezi, Executive Director, Forum For Educational Women Educationists (FAWE) Africa – Kenya
African leaders, UN organizations, Non governmental organizations, Stakeholders on girls and women education in line with the African Union’s Year of Education 2024, express strong commitment to ensure quality and equal education is provided to girls, womens, boys and men across the African continent.
“My vision is that of equality and I have to reflect and pose when I say equality. When we talk about equality it doesn’t mean that we’re undermining anyone, it is important than all of us men and women enjoy our rights, human rights, our economic rights, our rights to live in a safe environment, our rights to bodily integrity, our rights to be free of child marriage, our rights to be free of Female gentital motulation, our rights to have equal salaries with men base on equal competences, so that’s all, it’s not about underminding one’s gender over the other”.
Doris Mpoumou, AU Representative, Plan International, AU Liaison Office – Congo
Investing in women’s education is investing in women’s economic empowerment, poverty eradication and inclusive economic growth, which is a direct path towards gender equality according to experts. Girls at school, educated girls have contributed to the economic emergence of Africa as Efe Ukala, CEO and founder of ImpactHer has mentored and empowered over 140,000 African women entrepreneurs in fifty-three African countries.
“We have directly supported 140000 women across 53 African countries, helping them get access to finance, helping them get access to the capacity they need to scale their businesses, providing them with entrepreneurship skills as well as the mentorship that they need to grow”.
Efe Ukala, CEO/founder of ImpactHer – Nigeria
The 10 Declarations and Recommendations of the African Union’s 1st Pan-African Conference on Girls’ and Women’s Education in Africa (AU/PANCOGEd1) as part of the implementation of the roadmap related to the AU Theme of the year 2024, also awakens commitments and urges AU member states, governments, civil society organizations, religious and traditional leaders, among others to strengthen their dedication in ensuring equitable access to education across the African Continent.
