The African Union (AU) has several initiatives for women, youth, and children throughout Africa. These include the AU Gender Policy, which aims at promoting gender equality and empowering women across society. Likewise, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child is the other move devised to safeguard and promote children’s rights across the continent.
As part of this effort, AU runs programs and initiatives for African women, youth, and children in the areas of education, health, and social welfare. These activities are aimed at improving these peoples’ access to quality education, healthcare services, and creating better economic opportunities.
In particular, the African Union’s Agenda 2063 is a long-term development framework for Africa that contains specific goals and targets for women, youth, and children. Its goals lie to achieve inclusive and sustainable development for every African citizen, mainly the vulnerable section of the populations such as women, youth, and children. It also serves as Africa’s master plan for developing the continent into a future global superpower. The Agenda is described as the continent’s strategic framework aimed at achieving the sought goal of the region- inclusive and sustainable development. Not only that; but it is also a concrete manifestation of the Pan-African drive for unity, self-determination, freedom, progress, and collective prosperity, which is pursued under Pan-Africanism and toward the African Renaissance.
Most of all, the African Union specifically stated in its framework, Aspiration 6 of Agenda 2063: An Africa, whose development is people-driven, relying on the potential of African people, especially its women and youth, and caring for children. Essentially, every African citizen will actively participate in decision-making across all domains. Based on gender, political affiliation, religion, ethnic affiliation, geography, age, or any other criteria, no child, woman, or man will be left behind or excluded from Africa.
Therefore, the goal of this objective is to guarantee complete gender equality in all areas of life, promote gender parity and equality in all sectors of life—political, economic, and social—and do away with all types of violence and discrimination against women and girls and to strengthen the position of women in Africa. Additionally, it stipulates that the AU should empower and involve youths and children by giving them access to early childhood development via proper education, and so on.
Despite some progress in recent years and preparation of valuable documents, there is still a significant gap in terms of ensuring access to education for women and youth on the continent. Here, the most important question is why African youth and women are not befitted from the abundant resources that the continent possesses? In most cases, the answer is simple and straightforward since access to education remains an unresolved question for all Africans. In addition to limitation in accessing quality education for all African children, the lack of proper education and research that can solve the major challenges of the continent is the reason that hinders the development of the continent.
As to information from the UN, Africa, particularly the Sub-Saharan region, ranks the lowest in terms of places where access to education is inadequate. For example, 60 percent of youth aged 15 to 17 across the continent are out of school. In addition, a large proportion of teens drop out of school. The development and deployment of adequate teachers, as well as access to practical courses supplemented by current technology, are also insufficient to transform the continent.
According to Assistant Director-General for Education at the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Stefania Giannini, since education is an essential element to accelerate Africa’s development, providing the required support should be further strengthened to ensure access to and quality education in the continent. Ironically, a lot of young children in Africa continue to not attend school, and there are still concerns about the quality of education.
Therefore, to realize its set targets and assure continued development and prosperity across the continent, the education sector requires assistance. In this regard, AU should principally assume accountability for it and mobilize resources vigorously, and enlist the participation of other organizations.
According to AU Economic Development, Tourism, Trade, Industry, and Mining (ETTIM) Commissioner Albert Muchanga, a lack of sufficient education causes the skills mismatch in Africa’s workforce, which accounts for more than 15.8 percent. Inadequate education is a key barrier, and almost half of young people believe that their abilities do not match with the available job opportunities.
To curb these challenges, Africa must build continental qualification frameworks to support regional integration and skilled labor mobility by boosting its investments in education, research, and other areas. To be competitive in the twenty-first century, Africa must invest in education and skills training. Africa, in particular, is lagging behind in the fields of digitization and artificial intelligence. Many Africans lack access to decent education for a variety of reasons. Lifelong learning is not a luxury; it is essential. And education prepares the youths for jobs, including self-employment, which is really important, he said.
Dr. Ergoge Tesfaye of Ethiopia’s Ministry of Women and Social Affairs stated that Africa requires a sustainable and inclusive education system that is up to date. Africa’s young, in particular, should have access to a proper education. This will safeguard Africa’s development by establishing and making available a 21st-century education system.Africans should cooperate, and strengthen partnerships and collaborations to provide educational opportunities for youth since both the quality and accessibility of education are critical to bringing about sustainable development, long-lasting peace to the continent as well as to make use of African resources, she explained.
Indeed, achieving the continent’s goals requires well skilled human resources and an effective high-quality educational system that is receptive to new technology. Education is the cornerstone of long-term growth, as well as a critical contributor to peace and security, new job opportunities, and so on. African youth lack fundamental skills and are unemployed in their respective nations. As a result, the continent is underperforming in achieving its development goals; which calls for further effort.
Therefore, to assist African youth, the continent must enhance teachers’ ability so that they can teach African history using African resources which solves the challenges of the education system of the continent. Furthermore, African governments must strengthen their domestic education policies and institutions, improve access to quality education for all Africans, and enhance coordination with international partners to maximize the impact of education investments. This is critical not only for the benefit of African women, youth, and children, but also for promoting their rights, improving access to important services, and empowering them to actively engage in the overall development processes of their respective nations.
BY EPHREM ANDARGACHEW
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD TUESDAY 5 MARCH 2024
