UN: African countries lagging in education targets

The world will miss the goal of quality education for all by 2030 with sub-Sahara Africa faring the worst of all, according a new study by the UN’s education organisation, Unesco.

In the region, millions of children will continue to miss out on school and high-quality learning, the study found.

In sub-Saharan Africa 8% of children of primary school age are predicted to be out of school by the 2030 deadline. This is an improvement on the current figure of 19%.

No region is on track to achieve the goal of universal completion of secondary education by 2030.

If it can be said that an education system is as good as its teachers, then the report is a wake-up call for leaders in Africa.

Despite the region’s best efforts, over a quarter of pre-primary teachers will remain untrained.

However, the percentage of trained teachers globally is expected to increase between 2015 and 2030 to over 90% at each level of education.

The fastest growth is expected at the pre-primary education level, from 70% to 94%.