‘Today, 40% of all Africans are under 15. Another 100 million children will be born here by 2050. With (good) education, young Africans can fuel a colossal powerhouse.’
These are startling statistics, even to me, living in the midst of it.
An important part of the power that could be realized are the skills, drive and determination to help tackle climate and environmental damage. It is time we invested more effort, and money, working out how to get good quality education into the parts of the world that have high birth rates and marginalized populations.
The sticking plaster approach that has been used to date just isn’t cutting it. Classrooms without teachers is not good education, poorly trained and absent teachers in not good education, schools without facilities is not good education. Yet this is exactly the type of education that international donors have been funding and calling ‘education programs’ for decades. It simply isn’t good enough, and will not solve the problems that urgently need to be solved.