Author: Emmanuel A. A. Ubiu Date: Tuesday, 08 October 2024
Country: South Sudan
Source: A group of Nigerian graduates. (Unsplash)
This article highlights the crucial role investors will play in helping the African educational sector overcome financial gaps on the road to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4, ensuring quality education by 2030. Still, even as private and impact investors can provide much-needed resources and innovation, political instability, corruption, and bureaucratic inefficiencies have sometimes stood in the way.
This will, therefore, need a combined effort by governments, NGOs, and the private sectors to attract more investment. Public-private partnerships and improvement in governance are, therefore, prescribed as a remedy for the creation of an investment-friendly environment.
The article also reiterates that these are challenges that must be overcome if educational goals are to be met throughout the continent.
There has been a call of action by international organizations worldwide to increase the standards of life of people in vital aspects of life. The most widely known appeal is the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
SDGs are universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for everyone on the plant by 2030. SDGs place a great emphasis on sectors such as health and education.
In Africa, however, the education sector, while targeting the realization of SDG 4 (Quality Education), is grossly underfunded. In fact, it requires huge investment by investors, especially private investors, to fill this financing gap if Africa must achieve its educational goals. Some investors are skeptical of investing due to the many challenges that face the investment landscape, such as political instability, corruption, and bureaucracy. This highlights the need for interventions to close the funding gaps.
Status of SDG 4 (Quality Education) in Africa
SDG 4 aims to "ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all" by 2030; however, serious challenges remain in meeting this goal on the African continent.
According to UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2022), in Sub-Saharan Africa, 60% of children are not acquiring minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics. Most educational systems are severely under-resourced with regard to adequate schools, learning materials, and a qualified teaching staff.
More so, with the African countries battling socio-economic challenges like poverty, such factors continue to restrain the ability of governments to adequately budget sufficient funds to the education sector. This opens doors and for private investments.
The Role of Investors in Africa's Educational Development
Financing of education sectors is resource intensive and most African governments can’t simply do it as it exceeds their budgets. In light to this setback, investors tend to be the heroes. They do so by helping bridge the financing gap.
Private investors, philanthropic organizations, and impact investors provide much-needed finances, while experts and professionals like teachers also help in achieving the educational targets of SDGs.
Investors also help in improving access to necessary infrastructure like internet that eases access to learning materials. An example of Ethio Telecom, the largest telecommunication company in Ethiopia, provided free internet to all universities countrywide to ensure easy access of educational tools by both teachers and students.
This has led to improved access to EdTech, to facilitate learning and help support learners in remote areas to access quality education.
Impact investing, which means investing not only for the sake of making profits, but also to contribute to the welfare of humans in line with the SDGs, has become widely adopted by various investors.
The investors are slowly beginning to appreciate that their participation in certain sectors, like education, could yield not only proper financial returns but also considerably substantial social impact. Nevertheless, despite all the potential, several challenges tend to stand in the way for most of these investors in participating in Africa's education development.
Barriers which stand in the way of investors entering the education space in Africa inlude:
Instability in Politics: Most African countries are mired in unstable political environments, with frequent changes in the government and its policies-a surefire recipe for uncertainty that makes long-term investments unattractive.
Corruption: It is yet another significant obstacle. Investors fear their money will either be used inefficiently or unethically. Transparency International ranks many African countries low on its Corruption Perception Index in the ranking for 2023, meaning this is a wide concern among investors.
Bureaucracy: Intricate bureaucratic procedures are usually a drag to investments. The delay in acquiring permits, regulatory clearances, and maneuvering through mechanisms involving various government departments makes investment less attractive.
Infrastructure Deficiencies: In most African countries, inadequacies in basic infrastructure such as electricity, internet connectivity, and transportation pose serious challenges in the realization of education programs and technologies.
How major stakeholders can address investment challenges in the education sector
There are several players engaged in addressing the challenges facing the education sector in Africa, including:
Governments: Individual African governments have to provide an enabling environment that promotes investment through infrastructural development, minimizing bureaucratic procedures, and ensuring political stability.
Non-Governmental Organizations: While NGOs have indeed played an important role and supplemented governments with resources, expertise, and programs channeled toward the marginalized, the resources made available through NGOs are often limited and grossly inadequate even for whole countries.
Private investors represent a very vital class of investors. They include venture capitalists and philanthropic investment in education. They can also bring along new models, such as public-private partnerships, to scale up the educational services and technologies.
Case Study: Michael Blackson's School in Ghana
A fine example of a well-thought-of private investment in education was by the U.S.-based, Ghanaian-American comedian, Michael Blackson, who invested in the building of a school in Ghana.
Blackson's case is a strong illustration of how even at an individual level, private investments can make a marked difference in local communities. His philanthropic works are aligned with the impact investment principles, proving that education investment could be meaningful, yet sustainable.
However, Blackson’s investment in Africa appeared to have hit a roadblock when he publicly expressed his dissatisfaction with the Ghanaian government accusing them of misappropriating his investment.
Blackson voiced his disappointment in a series of tweets, revealing his intention to take legal action on an international level. “I’m very disappointed in my people for this,” he tweeted. This underscores the challenges faced by Investors in Africa in general.
Conclusion
Investors, therefore, have a significant role to play in education development in Africa. This is no easy task. It is true, with political instability, corruption, and infrastructural deficits that major sectors in Africa remain underfunded.
However, with emerging hope through the rise of impact-driven investment, it may be possible to achieve some gains in this direction.
With the tackling of challenges and increasing the opportunity to attract more investment, African countries will be in a better position to achieve targets set under SDG 4 by 2030.
[1] Transparency International. 2023. Corruption Perception Index. https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2023
[2] UNESCO Institute for Statistics. 2022. Global Education Monitoring Report: Africa. https://en.unesco.org/gem-report
[3] World Bank. 2023. Africa's Pulse: Investing in Africa's Future. https://www.worldbank.org/en/region/afr/publication
[4] UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. 2024. Sustainable Development. https://sdgs.un.org/goals
[5] Ethio Telecom. 2020. Ethio telecom offers free internet access to higher education students & teachers to enable them to access educational documents from http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/. https://dev.ethiotelecom.et/ethio-telecom-offers-free-internet-access-to-higher-education-students-teachers-to-enable-them-to-access-educational-documents-from-http-ndl-ethernet-edu-et/2/
[6] Ghana Online. 2024. I’m trapped in financial woes in Ghana- Michael Blackson. https://www.gbcghanaonline.com/entertainment/michael-blackson-3/2024/#:~:text=American%20comedian%20Michael%20Blackson%20has,Blackson%20Academy%20in%20Agona%20Nsaba.
[7] Unsplash. A group of Nigerian graduates. 2024. https://unsplash.com/s/photos/investment-in-education-in-africa
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