Briefing Paper

Knowledge Empowers Africa: The Benefits of Increased Investment in Education

“While many African countries will not meet the MDG’s for education, performance across the continent is mixed. Some have dramatically increased enrolment rates across all levels of education. This policy brief asks the questions ‘What if enrolment rates across Africa increased as rapidly as best-practice countries for primary and secondary education? and ‘What are the costs and benefits?’ By increasing primary and secondary enrolment rate improvements to best practice levels, Africa would effectively achieve universal primary education in the next 20 years and universal basic education by 2035. Specifically, through this intervention and the government funding to support it, near universal primary education completion would be obtained by 2030. At the lower secondary level, an ambitious gross enrolment level would be attained by 2035. Upper secondary levels would reach 85 percent enrolment by 2050.”