Ministers meet over quality education

Mar 26, 2006

AFRICAN ministers of education gather in the Gabonese capital, Libreville, today for the sixth biennial meeting of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA).

By John Eremu

AFRICAN ministers of education gather in the Gabonese capital, Libreville, today for the sixth biennial meeting of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA).

How to ensure more and better education in schools and in literacy and early childhood development programmes will be the strategic question discussed at the five-day meeting, ADEA said in a statement.

The five-day conference on the theme: Effective learning and effective education and training systems is expected to be opened by Gabonese president Omar Bongo and his counterpart from Cape Verde, Pedro Pires.

African Union chief Alpha Oumar Konaré is also expected to grace the occasion.
The meeting will bring together 400 participants, including all ministers of education from sub-Saharan Africa, representatives from multilateral and bilateral agencies working in the education sector in Africa, African and international non-governmental organisations and education experts from universities, research institutions and networks.

The main objective of the meeting is to enrich the political vision to achieve realistic and committed engagement to support the efforts of African countries striving to fulfill the challenge of quality basic education for all, ADEA said.
The meeting will address some of the critical problems in the continent whose education system is still characterised by high repetition and dropout rates, low primary school completion rates and low achievement levels.

“The fact that out of 100 children who begin school, only 60 complete primary education underscores the performance of education. Rates of effectiveness in education in Africa are among the lowest worldwide and indicate where the priorities of education policies should lie.

“There is need for more attention to investment in the quality of efforts made to achieve education for all,” the conference concept note observes.

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