Out Of School Youth In Sub Saharan Africa

The economic and social prospects are daunting for the 89 million out-of-school youth who comprise nearly half of all youth in Sub-Saharan Africa. Within the next decade, when this cohort becomes the core of the labor market, an estimated 40 million more youth will drop out, and will face an uncertain future with limited work and life skills. Furthermore, out-of-school youth often are “policy orphans,†? positioned between sectors with little data, low implementation capacity, lack of interest in long-term sustainability of programs, insufficient funds, and little coordination across the different government agencies. This report provides a diagnostic analysis of the state of out-of-school youth in Sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on the 12- to 24-year-old cohort. This report also examines the decision path youth take as they progress through the education system and the factors that explain youth’s school and work choices. It finds that individual and household characteristics, social norms, and characteristics of the school system all matter in understanding why youth drop out and remain out of school. In particular, six key factors characterize out-of-school youth: (i) most out-of-school youth drop out before secondary school; (ii) early marriage for female youth and (iii) rural residence increase the likelihood of being out of school; (iv) parental education level and (v) the number of working adults are important household factors; and (vi) lack of school access and low educational quality are binding supply-side constraints. Policy discussions on out-of-school youth are framed by these six key factors along with three entry points for intervention: retention, remediation, and integration. This report also reviews policies and programs in place for out-of-school youth across the continent. Ultimately, this report aims to inform public discussion, policy formulation, and development practitioners’ actions working with youth in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This volume is the result of academic cooperation between scholars in Norway, Sudan, Zambia, and South Africa linked to a master’s program in international education and development. It draws upon studies carried out in Sudan, Zambia, Namibia, and South Africa. Most of the chapters deal with the HIV/AIDS pandemic in various ways. Because youth are the group most vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, the various chapters discuss the complex discursive spaces that youth inhabit and navigate, and where the interlocking concepts of social identity, power, inequality, sexuality, vulnerability, and resilience are brought together. Many of the chapters discuss the HIV/AIDS pandemic in relation to indigenous knowledges and argue for including indigenous knowledges in the fight against the pandemic. The suggestion to include indigenous knowledges opens space for a more varied, holistic, and comprehensive approach to the pandemic. The book invites readers to explore the oppressive and often dangerous socioeconomic situation that many youth in sub-Saharan Africa experience, also beyond the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Chapters on street youth in Namibia and youth in a township in Cape Town discuss the often creative coping mechanisms employed by youth to escape or mitigate the oppressive situations they find themselves in.

This book focuses on how to improve the quality of jobs and meet the aspirations of youth in Sub-Saharan Africa. It finds that a strong foundation for human capital development can be key to boosting earnings, arguing for a balanced approach that builds skills and demand for labor.

Exemplary stories of innovation from around the world In an age of rising inequality, getting a good education increasingly separates the haves from the have nots. In countries like the United States, getting a good education is one of the most promising routes to upper-middle-class status, even more so than family wealth. Experts predict that by 2030, 825 million children will reach adulthood without basic secondary-level skills, and it will take a century for the most marginalized youth to achieve the educational levels that the wealthiest enjoy today. But these figures do not even account for the range of skills and competencies needed to thrive today in work, citizenship, and life. In a world where the ability to manipulate knowledge and information, think critically, and collaboratively solve problems are essential to thrive, access to a quality education is crucial for all young people. In Leapfrogging Inequality, researchers chart a new path for global education by examining the possibility of leapfrogging—harnessing innovation to rapidly accelerate educational progress—to ensure that all young people develop the skills they need for a fast-changing world. Analyzing a catalog of nearly 3,000 global education innovations, the largest such collection to date, researchers explore the potential of current practices to enable such a leap. As part of this analysis, the book presents an evidence-based framework for getting ahead in education, which it grounds in the here-and-now by narrating exemplary stories of innovation from around the world. Together, these stories and resources will inspire educators, investors, leaders of nongovernmental organizations, and policymakers alike to rally around a new vision of educational progress—one that ensures we do not leave yet another generation of young people behind.

Despite strong recent economic growth, Sub-Saharan Africa has levels of economic transformation, poverty reduction, and skill development far below those of other regions. Smart investments in developing skills—aligned with the policy goals of productivity growth, inclusion, and adaptability—can help to accelerate the region’s economic transformation in the 21st century. Sub-Saharan Africa’s growing working-age population presents a major opportunity to increase shared prosperity. Countries in the region have invested heavily in building skills; public expenditure on education increased sevenfold over the past 30 years, and more children are in school today than ever before. Yet, systems for building skills in this population have fallen short, and these shortcomings significantly impede economic prospects. In half of the countries, fewer than two in every three children complete primary school; even fewer reach and complete higher levels of education. Learning outcomes have been persistently poor, leading to substantial gaps in basic cognitive skills—literacy and numeracy—among children, young people, and adults. The literacy rate of the adult population is below 50 percent in many countries; functional literacy and numeracy rates are even lower. Systemwide change is required to achieve significant progress. Multiple agencies at the central and local levels are involved in skills development strategies, making skills “everyone’s problem but no one’s responsibility.†? Policies and reforms need to build capacity for evidence-based policies and create incentives to align the behaviors of all stakeholders with the pursuit of national skills development goals. The Skills Balancing Act in Sub-Saharan Africa: Investing in Skills for Productivity, Inclusivity, and Adaptability lays out evidence to inform the policy choices that countries will make in skill investments. Each chapter addresses a set of specific questions, drawing on original analysis and synthesis of existing studies to explore key areas: • How the skills appropriate to each stage of the life cycle are acquired and what market and institutional failures affect skills formation • What systems are needed for individuals to access these skills, including family investments, private sector institutions, schools, and other public programs • How those systems can be strengthened • How the most vulnerable individuals—those who fall outside the standard systems and have missed critical building blocks in skills acquisition—can be supported. Countries will face trade-offs—often stark ones—that will have distributional impacts and a bearing on their development path. Committed leaders, reform coalitions, and well-coordinated policies are essential for taking on the skills balancing act in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Young people in sub-Saharan Africa are growing up in rapidly changing social and economic environments which produce high levels of un- and underemployment. Job creation through entrepreneurship is currently being promoted by international organizations, governments and NGOs as a key solution, despite there being a dearth of knowledge about youth entrepreneurship in an African context. This book makes an important contribution by exploring the nature of youth entrepreneurship in Ghana, Uganda and Zambia. It provides new insights into conceptual and methodological discussions of youth entrepreneurship as well as presenting original empirical data. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative research, conducted under the auspices of a collaborative, interdisciplinary and comparative research project, it highlights the opportunities and challenges young people face in setting up and running businesses. Divided into a number of clear sections, each with its own introduction and conclusion, the book considers the nature of youth entrepreneurship at the national level, in both urban and rural areas, in specific sectors - including mobile telephony, mining, handicrafts and tourism - and analyses how key factors, such as microfinance, social capital and entrepreneurship education, affect youth entrepreneurship. New light is shed on the multi-faceted nature of youth entrepreneurship and a convincing case is presented for a more nuanced understanding of the term entrepreneurship and the situation faced by many African youth today. This book will be of interest to a wide range of scholars interested in youth entrepreneurship, including in development studies, business studies, youth studies and geography, as well as to development practitioners and policy makers. The Open Access title has now been added to the Open Access page. http://www.tandfebooks.com/page/openaccess