Reimagining education for all in Africa May 05,2021 - Last updated at May 05,2021 KAMPALA — International concerns over the state of education in Africa centre on the large number of children who are out of school — currently about one-third of the global total. But while expanding access to education on the continent must clearly remain a priority, policymakers should also pay much closer attention to what and how children learn. Today, even the many African children in school experience problems. In Sub-Saharan Africa, up to 40 per cent leave primary school without basic skills. The many over-age children within the system are more likely to drop out overall. And girls and the very poorest children fare the worst on international comparisons of educational performance. The Africa Learning Barometer reports, for instance, that “in Malawi, 52 per cent of girls are not learning basic competencies at the end of primary school compared to 44 per cent of boys”, and that “in Botswana, 7 per cent of the wealthy are not learning compared to 30 per cent of the poor”.