Changing Patterns of Access to Education in Anglophone and Francophone Countries in Sub Saharan Africa: Is Education for All Pro-Poor?

CREATE Research monographs: pathways to access series, PTAs, N°52

This paper explores patterns of growth in participation in six Anglophone and seven Francophone countries in SSA. The Anglophone countries are Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. Francophone countries were Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Madagascar, Mali, Niger and Senegal. These countries have all had large scale Universal Primary Education programmes supported with external finance, and all have demographic and health survey (DHS) data sets collected at least ten years apart, first in the 1990s and subsequently after 2000. The data provide the opportunity to explore participation over a period of a decade or more to see how it has been changing. The results show that progress towards universal access to education has been patchy and sometimes disappointing. Access to education remains strongly associated with household wealth despite commitments to pro-poor policies and investment of resources. Though overall participation has often increased, the chances of the poorest being enrolled relative to the richest have generally not improved substantially and in some cases have deteriorated.

Child labor and school attendance in Kenya by Peter Moyi

Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest incidence of child labor in the world and estimates show that it continues to grow. This paper examines the causes and magnitude of child labor in Kenya.this paper includes household chores. Including household chores is important because majority of child labor takes place within the household. The paper finds that socioeconomic status and structure of the household have a strong effect on child labor. Also, a large proportion of working children attend school. If the consequence of working is to hinder educational attainment, then policymakers need to focus to this dimension of educational inequality: Between students who combine work and school and those who do not.

Abolishing fees boosts African schooling

By eliminating fees, Kenya was able to quickly get 2 million more pupils into its primary schools.