Conference of African planners first session : the planned develoment of education

Abstract

This document highlighted the important role played by education in economic development. In Africa taken as a whole, the proportion of adults unable to either read or write is about 85%. The educational implications of the expected changes and the projections made were, first, the setting up of an education system for all children between 6 and 15 years old, and secondly, a considerable expansion for young people between the ages of 15 and 19. The problem of educational development mainly from the quantitative angle, they do implicitly entail qualitative considerations. But it should be stressed that the effects of education on economic development do not only depend on the number of schools and on the total figure of pupils and students enrolled. There is on the one hand the question of productivity of the educational system expressed as the proportion of students who have successfully completed the various school courses provided for and on the other hand, the nature and quality of the educational content which can be seen by the type men and women which this education produces in relation to the civic, social, cultural and economic needs of the community to which they belong. That is the great problems of school curricula and methods and their adaptation.