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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008
In 1961, soon after the beginning of the first United Nations Development Decade, a conference of African Ministers of Education was convened by Unesco. The meeting resolved, inter alia, that by the year 1980 primary schooling throughout the continent should be ‘universal, compulsory and free’.1 As we have now reached that date, it is appropriate to review progress. A few countries have achieved the goal, but many others have fallen short. This article will examine the experience of the last two decades, and assess its implications for ultimate objectives and the strategies for achieving them. Despite national policy variations and divergent social and economic conditions, instructive overall patterns may be discerned.
page 547 note 1 UNECA/UNESCO. Conference of African States on the Development of Education in Africa final report (Paris, 1961), pt. 11, p. 16.Google Scholar
page 547 note 2 See, for example, Sheffield, James R. and Diejomaoh, Victor P., Non-Formal Education in African Development (New York, 1972), p. 204Google Scholar; and Farrar, Curtis, ‘AID's Policies for Education and Rural Development’, in Niehoff, Richard O. (ed), Non-Formal Education and the Rural Poor (East Lansing, 1977), p. 38.Google Scholar
page 548 note 1 UNESCO Statistical Yearbook, 1977 (Paris, 1978), Table 3.2.Google Scholar
page 548 note 2 Fredriksen, Birger, ‘Universal Primary Education in Developing Countries: a statistical review’, in Prospects (Paris), VIII, 2, 1978, p. 366.Google Scholar The Sahel countries are Chad, the Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, and Upper Volta.
page 548 note 3 Fredriksen, Birger, ‘Progress towards Regional Targets for Universal Primary Education: a statistical review’, in International Journal of Educational Development (Birmingham), 1, 1, 1981, pp. 6–7.Google Scholar
page 549 note 1 Unesco, , Trends and Projections of Enrolments by Level of Education and by Age (Paris, 1977), pp. 20 and 39.Google Scholar
page 549 note 3 Fiah, Solomon F. Y., ‘Ghana's Universal Primary Education Scheme: a review’, M.Sc. dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 1979, p. 1.Google Scholar
page 549 note 4 See Abernethy, David B., The Political Dilemma of Popular Education (Stanford, 1969), pp. 144–87Google Scholar; and Roberts, Margaret, ‘Educational Revolution in the North’, in West Africa (London), 20 06 1960.Google ScholarPubMed
page 549 note 5 Court, David and Kinyanjui, Kabiru, ‘Development Policy and Educational Opportunity: the experience of Kenya and Tanzania’, in Carron, Gabriel and Chau, Ta Ngoc (eds.), Regional Disparities in Educational Development (Paris, 1980), p. 396.Google Scholar
page 549 note 6 Bray, Mark, Universal Primary Education in Nigeria: a study of Kano State (London, 1981)Google Scholar; Court and Kinyanjui, loc.cit. pp. 377–80; République togolaise, plan, Ministère du, Plan de développement économique et social, 1976–80 (Lomé, 1976), p. 368Google Scholar; and Unesco, , ‘Ethiopia’, in ‘Educational Policies and Plans in Africa in the 1970's: summaries and synthesis’, Paris, 1977, p. 19.Google Scholar
page 550 note 1 For examples from both the regional and national Nigerian campaigns, see Abernethy, op.cit. pp. 132 ff., and Bray, op.cit.
page 550 note 2 Schramm, Wilbur, Big Media, Little Media (London, 1976), pp. 142–73.Google Scholar
page 550 note 3 The World Bank, Ivory Coast: the challenge of success (Baltimore, 1978), p. 277.Google Scholar
page 550 note 4 Grett, John, ‘Primary Teaching by Television is Abandoned’, in The Times Educational Supplement (London), 8 05 1981.Google Scholar
page 551 note 1 Source: UNESCO Statistical Yearbook, 1980 (Paris, 1981), Table 3.2.Google Scholar
page 552 note 1 Ibid. Table 3.1.
page 552 note 2 The World Bank, Education Sector Policy Paper (Washington, D.C. 1980. p. 118.Google Scholar
page 553 note 1 Unesco, , Wastage in Primary Education: a statistical study of trends and patterns of repetition and dropout (Paris, 1979), p. 1.Google Scholar Around 1976, repeaters constituted on average 17·7 per cent of pupils enrolled in primary education in the 38 African countries covered, 10·9 per cent in the 22 Latin American countries, 9·9 per cent in the 29 Asian and Oceanian countries, and 3·5 per cent in the 22 European and U.S.S.R. countries.
page 553 note 2 All the 16 countries in the same survey – ibid. p. 16 – with more than 20 per cent repeaters were former French, Belgian, or Portuguese colonies, while all the nine countries with less than 10 per cent repeaters had been under British rule. In the same year, respective French, Belgian, and Portuguese repetition rates were 9·2 per cent, 23·4 per cent, and 11 per cent, while the U.K. practised automatic promotion.
page 553 note 3 See, for example, Republic of Botswana, National Policy on Education (Gaborone, 1977), p. 17Google Scholar; and Kano State of Nigeria, Government Views on the Report of Education Review Committee (Kano, 1976), p. 3.Google Scholar An intermediate policy operates in Togo, where pupils are automatically promoted within each of the three parts of the six-year primary course, but may repeat on completing them. République togolaise, op.cit. p. 368.
page 553 note 4 In Kenya, for example, the programme launched in 1974 was announced less than three weeks earlier. In Nigeria, the scheme announced in January 1974 was originally scheduled for April 1975, though it was later postponed to September 1976. In Tanzania, less than three years' advance notice was given of the campaign launched in January 1977. See Court and Kinyanjui, loc.cit. p. 402, and Bray, op.cit.
page 554 note 1 In Kano State, for example, 41 per cent of primary teachers in 1976–7 were untrained, and 75 per cent of that group had only Primary VII qualifications or less. Bray, op.cit.
page 554 note 2 Coombs, Philip H. et al. , New Paths to Learning (New York, 1973), pp. 10–11.Google Scholar
page 554 note 3 See Simkins, Tim, Non-Formal Education and Development (Manchester, 1977), pp. 10–11.Google Scholar
page 555 note 1 ‘Everyone’, it states, ‘has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the early stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory.’ General Assembly of the United Nations, United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, reprinted by H.M.S.O., London, 1977, p. 4.Google Scholar
page 555 note 2 Abernethy, op.cit. p. 239.
page 555 note 3 In Lesotho and Botswana, the lower male enrolment probably reflects first the fact that boys but not girls are required to tend livestock, and second, that women play a particularly important economic rôle because a very large proportion of adult males work in neighbouring South Africa.
page 556 note 1 Carnoy, Martin, ‘Can Educational Policy Equalize Income Distribution?’, in Prospects, VIII, 1, 1978, p. 4.Google Scholar
page 556 note 2 Ibid. p. 5.
page 557 note 1 Enrolment in private secondary schools expanded markedly between 1965 and 1976, and in the latter year, 61 private schools existed compared with 81 government schools. Court and Kinyanjui, loc.cit. p. 391.
page 557 note 2 Psacharopoulos, George, Returns to Education (Amsterdam, 1973),Google Scholar and ‘Returns to Education: an updated international comparison’, in King, Timothy (ed.), Education and Income (Washington, D.C., 1980).Google Scholar
page 557 note 3 Unesco/I.I.E.P., Manpower Aspects of Educational Planning (Paris, 1968), p. 81.Google Scholar
page 558 note 1 Gillette, Arthur Lavery, Beyond the Non-Formal Fashion (Amherst, 1977).Google Scholar
page 558 note 2 Hawes, Hugh, Curriculum and Reality in African Primary Schools (London, 1979. p. 163.Google Scholar
page 558 note 3 Botti, M. et al. , Basic Education in the Sahel Countries (Hamburg, 1978), p. 5.Google Scholar
page 559 note 1 See, for example, N. Salamé, quoted in Gillette, op.cit. p. 12.
page 560 note 1 See Republic of Zambia, Education for Development: draft statement on educational reform (Lusaka, 1976).Google Scholar After considerable debate, a very watered-down policy document was produced: Educational Reform: proposals and recommendations (Lusaka, 1977).Google Scholar
page 560 note 2 I.L.O., Economic Transformation in a Socialist Framework: an employment and basic needs oriented development strategy for Somalia (Addis Ababa, 1977), p. 344.Google Scholar
page 561 note 1 Court and Kinyanjui, loc.cit. p. 393.
page 561 note 2 Federal Republic of Nigeria, Government Views on the Implementation Committee's Blueprint on ‘The Federal Republic of Nigeria National Policy on Education’ (Lagos, 1979), p. 12Google Scholar; and Bray, op.cit.
page 562 note 1 Rostow, W. W., The Stages of Economic Growth (Cambridge, 1960).Google Scholar
page 562 note 2 The first page of the 1976–80 Togolese Development Plan, for example, is devoted to a quotation from President Eyadema in which he stresses the need for a Rostowian type of ‘take-off’. Similarly, Thakur, A. S. and Ezenne, A. N. suggest that ‘Nigeria should continue with the universal primary education scheme…bearing in mind the level of education of a nation can determine the level of its economic growth’, and ‘With such investment, Nigeria is certainly clearing grounds for industrial and technological take-off’. A Short History of Education in Nigeria (Delhi, 1980). pp. 77 and 94.Google Scholar