Free secondary education in Africa: an impossible mission?

A classroom at the Collège Saint-Louis de Kananga, the largest college in Kasaï-Central in the DRC RFI / Sonia Rolley

By: Emmanuelle Bastide

2 min

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms that education is a basic human right for all. 

Publicity

However, only 155 countries legally guarantee 9 years of free education (end of middle school) and 99 countries at least 12 years of free education (end of secondary school), according to UNESCO figures from 2018. Despite the political will, many countries are struggling to implement this free: overcrowded classes, insufficient school infrastructure, a plethora of teachers who work without being paid.  

With:

François Robert

, consultant in Education and author of 

Bineta and Mamadou - brief chronicle of African schools at the beginning of our century

 (Éditions Ganndal) 

Fatymatou Sow Sarr

, principal of the 

John Fitzgerald Kennedy public

high school, high school for young girls in the Colobane district in Dakar (Senegal).

And an interview in Ghana by 

Charlie Dupiot

.

As of September 2017, secondary education has been free in Ghana.

Our reporter Charlie Dupiot joined Rita Abamah, who is a teacher but also responsible for girls' education (she is a "girl child education officer") in the district of Bongo, in the far north of Ghana, very close to the border with Burkina Faso.

In each Ghanaian locality, there is a position, funded by the government, for a civil servant who must identify and help out-of-school girls in the communities.

It is therefore the work of Rita Abamah, who gives us an assessment of the policy of free secondary education.

At the end of the program,

  the chronicle of the psychologist Ibrahim Haïdara, Parents, children, here and elsewhere

 : The weddings of today and tomorrow.

Download 

here

A weekly meeting to help parents, Ibrahim Haïdara is a psychologist, psychology

firm Psy2A

, in Bamako (Mali). 

Musical programming:

►

Alewa

 - Santrofi (Ghana)

►

Mo Solo

- Blakkayo, Vergino

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  • Education

  • Africa

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