Keith Lewin

Access to education in sub-Saharan Africa: patterns, problems and possibilities

The numbers of children with access to basic education in sub‐Saharan Africa have increased substantially over the last two decades but many still remain out of school. Some fail to enrol at all, especially in fragile states, and many more start school but do not complete the basic cycle. Education for All (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have generated commitments to improve greatly access to education. This paper first develops an expanded vision of access. Second, it analyses participation by grade and identifies five different country patterns. Third, changes in enrolments over time are explored which show that in some countries progress has been very uneven and that overall expansion may conceal large increases in lower grades and little change in completion rates. Fourth, data on age in grade are used to show that many children are overage and this may have consequences for attempts to lower dropout and improve completion rates. Fifth, participation by household income remains very uneven, especially at secondary level and wealth remains the most powerful determinant of progression to higher educational levels. Sixth, there has been good progress on some other sources of inequality, e.g. gender disparities, but much remains to be achieved, especially in fragile states. Concluding remarks draw out some policy related conclusions for future EFA priorities.

The costs of supply and demand for teacher education: dilemmas for development

Abstract This paper explores some of the financial issues that arise for teacher education policy and practice in developing countries. It is based on the results of the MUSTER 1 research programme First it provides an overview of the context which shapes investment in teacher education across four countries. Second, each case is considered from different perspectives—a profile of the supply side, estimates of the costs of training, and an analysis of demand. This leads to some reflections on each case which draw attention to the main issues. The final discussion draws out some implications for policy, not least those arising from the inability of some training systems to meet demand at sustainable levels of cost. This creates dilemmas in terms of whether to adopt systems that can produce large numbers of teachers at low costs with reduced time in college, or maintain expensive conventional full-time pre-career residential systems and accept shortfalls in the supply of teachers long into the future. The data analysed here are derived from extensive MUSTER research in Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi and Trinidad and Tobago. 2

From student teachers to newly qualified teachers in Ghana: insights into becoming a teacher

This paper explores the perceptions of three groups of teacher education trainees in Ghana—those beginning training, those completing training, and those with two years’ experience in schools. A structured instrument was used to assess responses to statements about the status of teachers and teaching, teacher control, preferences for posting and different aspects of learning and teaching. Some differences were found between the responses of the groups. The direction of these differences was not always consistent with the aspirations of training curricula, suggesting other factors might be influential, and that more attention should be given to establishing what initial teacher training can and cannot achieve.

Who Becomes a Teacher? The Characteristics of Student Teachers in Four Countries.

This paper reviews the characteristics of students entering initial training in four countries?Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, and Trinidad and Tobago. First a brief overview of the teacher education systems is provided. Second, biographical data is reviewed on age, religious affiliation, ethnic group and mother tongue, parental occupations and academic achievement, and students? educational qualifications. Third, some insights into trainees? perceptions about teaching and the teaching profession are presented. Finally, comparisons are made for two countries on cross-sectional data comparing the perceptions of entering and exiting trainees and newly qualified teachers. The results draw attention to the qualities and perceptions that those on initial training programmes bring to the teacher education curriculum. They provide a reminder that teacher education curricula should recognise these characteristics and be designed to respond to needs that they create.

Strategies for Sustainable Financing of Secondary Education in Sub-Saharan Africa

This thematic study discusses strategies for sustainable financing of secondary education in Sub-Saharan Africa. The report provides insight into options for financing the expansion of secondary education and training in Africa. This comes with a hefty price tag and points to the need to undertake fundamental reforms swiftly. This publication messages are clear: secondary education and training in Sub-Saharan Africa faces the challenge of improved efficiency and improved quality simultaneously with a fast growing demand. Sustainable financing will also require more effective public-private partnerships, because governments have many priorities and do not have a lot of room for significant additional public funding of post-primary systems. Educational reforms are needed to expand enrollment in secondary schooling in affordable ways. These reforms will contribute to poverty reduction by increasing the levels of knowledge, skills, and capability; diminishing inequalities in access that limit social mobility and skew income distribution; and contributing to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that relate to education.

Policy and planning of physical science education in South Africa: Myths and realities

South Africa has inherited a fragmented system of science education which fails to provide adequate access to the majority of the population and poorly serves those whom it does educate. Less than 0.5% of South African students achieve university entrance qualifications in science and mathematics. Post-apartheid policies have focused on increasing investment in science education through educating more science teachers, providing more access to students to study science at schools, and supplying more science equipment to schools. Based on findings from research conducted in Kwazulu-Natal, we conclude that each of these policy initiatives can be questioned. First, Kwazulu-Natal appears to have sufficient qualified physical science teachers to meet current demand. Additional teachers may be needed to cope with expansion, but not to teach existing students. Second, apparent shortages of qualified teachers may arise because of poor deployment; many who are qualified appear to be teaching other subjects or occupying nonteaching posts. Third, rapidly expanding access appears likely to reduce, rather than increase, pass rates, and divert resources from improvements in quality. Fourth, the reasons for differences in performance and poor performance appear not to be simply associated with levels of resource provision; more likely it is the efficient and effective use of these resources which is important.

Diversity in convergence: access to education for all

Access to education has become a focal point of national strategies and development assistance to reduce poverty in the developing world. Commitments to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (United Nations, 2006) and the Dakar Goals (UNESCO, 2000) associated with ‘education for all’ (EFA) are quite explicit on the need to universalize participation in basic education and achieve gender equity throughout school systems. Achieving these goals is seen as an essential component of any effort to reduce poverty, increase equity and transform the developmental prospects of individuals and nation states. The goals remain some distance from being achieved and there is real doubt that many of the poorest countries will succeed in making the targets set by 2015. This Presidential address seeks to explore some of the reasons why this is so. It argues that greater progress is only likely to be possible if: (i) current status and starting points are more clearly recognized; (ii) access to education is reconceptualized in ways that capture diversity of context, experience and possibilities; (iii) goals and targets are revisited to reshape these in ways which reconcile ambitions with demographic realities and sustainable financial demands. There is a need to nurture relationships between target setters and target getters and to redraw the map of EFA to differentiate pathways towards common goals. The British Association for International and Comparative Education (BAICE) conference in 2005 was on the subject of diversity and inclusion and much of the discussion was rooted at the level of the learner and diversity among individuals, their learning needs and the cultures through which they learned. This discussion Compare Vol. 37, No. 5, October 2007, pp. 577–599

Planning policy on science education in developing countries

Major areas where research in science education in developing countries is needed are identified. These include: resource use and planning; curriculum development, especially concerning ‘innovative capacity’, cultural context effects and curriculum specialization; patterns of achievement, especially concerning the impact of gender, class size and teaching methods.

Insights into the policy and practice of teacher education in low-income countries: The Multi-Site Teacher Education Research Project

The Multi-Site Teacher Education Research project (MUSTER) explores initial teacher education in five countries-Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, and Trinidad and Tobago. National research teams collected and analysed data on key dimensions of the training process, which included the characteristics of those selected for training, the curriculum processes they experience, the outcomes of training, the reflections of newly trained teachers in schools, analysis of supply and demand for new teachers, and projections of the resource and cost implications of meeting national targets to universalise primary schooling. Many insights are contained in the extensive publications associated with the project, and these lead to a variety of evidenced-based conclusions that will inform future policy.

Policy and Practice in Assessment in Anglophone Africa: Does globalisation explain convergence?

This paper explores policy and practice in assessment in developing countries in anglophone Africa in the context of globalisation. A simple interpretation of some globalisation theory suggests that there should be a convergence in the form and content of assessment following on from innovations in practice in metropolitan countries, in this case England. The analysis of assessment instruments shows that there has indeed been some convergence across the nine African cases examined, but that this is not best explained by the adoption of innovations current in the metropole. More powerful explanations are grounded in the structural similarity between the African systems. Amongst other things this leads to gaps between the rhetoric of assessment reform and the reality of assessment practice. These persist despite consistent projections in the assessment literature (both national and international) and in externally supported curriculum and assessment projects of what should be valued, what should be assessed, and what may be relevant to future employment.