Two days after celebrating the Day of the African Child, the World Bank on Tuesday posted on its X account that Morocco is a concrete example of efforts to expand access to preschool education following Morocco’s recent launch of a $450 million education project.
The project’s goal is to improve the quality of services in preschool facilities in rural areas in Morocco, including training educators and developing a digital platform.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), fewer than one in every five African countries meets the education financing criterion, demonstrating that African governments are still not investing enough to secure adequate education for the continent’s children.
Most of these governments are not meeting their commitments to allocate 20% of their national budgets to education, as recommended in the framework for action for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for education. Nearly $183 billion are needed each year for the education of African children, according to UNICEF.
Despite significant progress achieved by African governments over the previous decade to expand primary and lower secondary school enrollment, schools remain underfunded, resulting in overcrowded classrooms and insufficient numbers of instructors, many of whom lack the necessary qualifications.
A staggering four out of five African children aged ten are unable to read and comprehend a basic story, and more than 100 million primary and secondary school-aged children in Africa are not even enrolled in school, according to UNICEF.
“Too many people are being let down by educational institutions,” Etleva Kadilli, UNICEF’s Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, said. “Africa urgently requires a continental revolution to safeguard its development.”