Achieving Education for All

Dilemmas in System-Wide Reforms and Learning Outcomes in Africa

Ishmael I. Munene

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9798216294412
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Education Administration
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Using the Education for All (EFA) global movement as the setting, this book surveys the complex labyrinths of international education policy making, the design and implementation of system-wide educational reform, and the assessment of learning outcomes in the African context. It addresses the following questions: what does it mean for African states to reform their educational systems to meet the global agenda of Education for All and the Millennium Development Goals? Under what structural conditions have African governments implemented universal primary education programs, and with what outcomes? What are the lessons learned and how do these inform the post-2015 agenda for universal primary education in Africa and other developing countries? This book provides answers to these questions and opens the possibilities for new approaches to Education for All in the context of constrained resources, unstable political climates, and the agency of local communities.

It is undeniable that African governments responded to the educational goals espoused in EFA and MDG paradigms through their own "education for all" plans and expended vast resources to realize these objectives. However, there remains a serious gap in knowledge about the design of these plans, the influence of local and international forces in their development, the challenges inherent in executing comprehensive and multifaceted reforms to achieve these goals, and the success of the reform measures as evident in student learning outcomes.

This book addresses this knowledge gap in three ways. First, it utilizes empirical data collected over a five-year period from six African countries—Kenya, Mali, Senegal, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda—to illuminate how the global agenda on education has been debated, designed, and implemented across the continent, and with what outcomes. Second, it frames the six nation case studies within the wider logic of international educational policy agenda and the continent-wide search for education quality. Finally, the analysis of universal primary education strategies is undertaken from an interdisciplinary perspective thereby allowing a more comprehensive view of the educational reform.

Table of contents

• Contents
• figures
• Tables
• Foreword: Citizens Acting to Improve Learning
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1. Introduction: Universal Primary Education (UPE) in Africa: The Dilemmas of Access, Equality, and Quality
• Chapter 2. Universal Primary Education and the Challenge of Quality in Sub-Saharan Africa
• Chapter 3. Measuring Learning Outcomes: Lessons from the Uwezo Experience
• Chapter 4. The Challenge of Access, Quality, and Equity: Education in Kenya, 1963 to 2015
• Chapter 5. Schooling and Learning in Tanzania: Trends and Issues in Basic Education
• Chapter 6. Tracing Universal Primary Education in Uganda since Independence (1962–2014)
• Chapter 7. Dilemmas of Education for All in Mali: An Evaluation of Learning Outcomes
• Chapter 8. The Long Way from Elitism to Massification: What Is the Place of Good-Quality Learning in the Senegalese School?
• Chapter 9. Conclusion. Questioning the UPE Paradigm, Reframing the UPE Strategy
• Index
• About the Contributors