Education in East and Central Africa is a comprehensive critical reference guide to education in the region. With chapters written by an international team of leading regional education experts, the book explores the education systems of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Sao Tome, Gabon, the Republic of Congo and Rwanda. The book critically examines the regional development of education provision in each country as well as recent reforms and global contexts. Including a comparative introduction to the issues facing education in the region as a whole and guides to available online datasets, this handbook is an essential reference for researchers, scholars, international agencies and policy-makers at all levels.

Education in East and Central Africa is a comprehensive critical reference guide to education in the region. With chapters written by an international team of leading regional education experts, the book explores the education systems of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Sao Tome, Gabon, the Republic of Congo and Rwanda. The book critically examines the regional development of education provision in each country as well as recent reforms and global contexts. Including a comparative introduction to the issues facing education in the region as a whole and guides to available online datasets, this handbook is an essential reference for researchers, scholars, international agencies and policy-makers at all levels.

In different but complementary ways, the chapters in this collection provide a deeper understanding of socio-cultural processes in various parts of the African continent. They do so in the context of contemporary mediated processes of globalization, and emphasize the agency of Africans.

Progress in literacy and learning, especially through universal primary education, has done more to advance human conditions than perhaps any other policy. Our generation has the possibility of becoming the first generation ever to offer all children access to good quality basic education. But it will only happen if we have the political commitment -- at the country as well as at the international level -- to give priority to achieve this first in human history. And it will only happen if also those who cannot afford to pay school fees can benefit from a complete cycle of good quality primary education. Investment in good quality fee-free primary education should be a cornerstone in any government's poverty reduction strategy.

This handbook explores the evolution of African education in historical perspectives as well as the development within its three systems–Indigenous, Islamic, and Western education models—and how African societies have maintained and changed their approaches to education within and across these systems. African education continues to find itself at once preserving its knowledge, while integrating Islamic and Western aspects in order to compete within this global reality. Contributors take up issues and themes of the positioning, resistance, accommodation, and transformations of indigenous education in relationship to the introduction of Islamic and later Western education. Issues and themes raised acknowledge the contemporary development and positioning of indigenous education within African societies and provide understanding of how indigenous education works within individual societies and national frameworks as an essential part of African contemporary society.

Studies of African economic development frequently focus on the daunting challenges the continent faces. From recurrent crises to ethnic conflicts and long-standing corruption, a raft of deep-rooted problems has led many to regard the continent as facing many hurdles to raise living standards. Yet Africa has made considerable progress in the past decade, with a GDP growth rate exceeding five percent in some regions. The African Successes series looks at recent improvements in living standards and other measures of development in many African countries with an eye toward identifying what shaped them and the extent to which lessons learned are transferable and can guide policy in other nations and at the international level. The second volume in the series, African Successes: Human Capital turns the focus toward Africa’s human capital deficit, measured in terms of health and schooling. It offers a close look at the continent’s biggest challenges, including tropical disease and the spread of HIV.