ACHPR African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights
Human Rights our Collective Responsibility
**CONCEPT NOTE
THE WORKING GROUP ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS IN AFRICA**
**PANEL ON THE AFRICAN UNION THEME OF THE YEAR 2024:
THE RIGHT TO EDUCATION**
1. Introduction
The Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU) at its 36$^{th}$ Ordinary Session in February 2023 adopted the AU theme of the Year 2024, as Educate an African fit for the 21$^{st}$ Century: Building resilient education systems for increased access to inclusive, lifelong, quality, and relevant learning in Africa.
Recent reviews of the African Union Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA 16-25) and Education 2030 Framework for Action, the AU-UNESCO continental report of the CESA and SDG42 and a joint AU-UNICEF report on Transforming Education in Africa, point to the fact that over the past ten years, African Governments have undertaken a wide range of programmes and policy-level efforts to ensure that no child is left behind in access to education. There have been substantial efforts on the continent to ensure access, completion, and quality of basic education for all. Overall, the proportion of out-of-school children had decreased until around 2010. The completion rates had improved in primary and lower secondary education, as well as the access to and the participation in TVET. There was also noticeable progress in the access to pre-primary education and in adult literacy and lifelong learning. With regards to School Feeding, low-income countries, have doubled their national budget expenditures to HGSF from 17 percent to 33 percent between 2013 and 2020. In lower middle-income countries, national budgets now account for 88% of school meals financing, up from 55% in 2013.
However, despite efforts and progress made, three main indicators ring a warning bell. Although the out of school rate, i.e., the “proportion of children and young people in the official age range for the given level of education who are not enrolled in preprimary, primary, secondary or higher levels of education” keeps steadily decreasing, especially
for the primary level, the absolute number has reached the alarming global estimate of 98 million in Africa 3 (see figure 1 below). The learning poverty rate, i.e. “the share of children who cannot read a simple text with comprehension by age 10 was the highest in sub-Saharan Africa before COVID-19 pandemic, at 86%. This rate is likely to have worsened after the pandemic, estimated now at 90%. This means that nine out of ten children cannot read a simple text with comprehension by age 10. 4 (see figure 2 below). Africa will need 17 million additional teachers in order to achieve universal primary and secondary education by 2030.