Africa faces severe learning crisis: World Bank

DAR ES SALAAM, March 8 (Xinhua) — Africa is facing a severe learning
crisis that thwarts its economic growth and the well-being of the citizens,
said a new World Bank study released in Tanzania on Monday.

The study, released in Tanzania’s commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, said
learning levels across the region are alarmingly low.”The region has made
considerable progress in boosting primary and lower secondary school
enrollment, but some 50 million children remain out of school, and most of
those who attend school are not acquiring the basic skills necessary for
success later in life,” said the study.It said among second-grade students
assessed on numeracy tests in several sub-Saharan African countries,
three-quarters could not count beyond 80 and 40 percent could not do a
one-digit addition problem.”In reading, between 50 and 80 percent of
children in second grade could not answer a single question based on a
short passage they had read, and a large proportion could not read even a
single word,” said the study.”Providing a high-quality basic education for
children across the region is an economic necessity, as well as a moral
imperative,” said the World Bank’s Senior Director for Education Jaime
Saavedra.”This report provides a sobering look at Africa’s learning crisis
and the region’s potential to solve it,” Saavedra said. “Young Africans can
transform the region and create lasting economic change, but they need to
be equipped with the skills and human capital to do so.”Specifically, the
report urges countries to focus on student progression and the “traffic
jam” in early grades, where children are stuck for many years with little
learning, and are often taught in a language they don’t fully
understand.According to the study, African governments spent an estimated
204 U.S. dollars per student for primary education in 2014, less than half
of the amount spent in South Asia, the region with the next lowest level of
spending.