A Failing Economy Because of a Faling System

A Failing Economy Because of a Failing System

Imagine being crammed into a classroom with 50 other students. Imagine not being sure whether your teacher will show up that day. That is what many students across Africa have to go through every day. Not only are the classrooms small and a lack of teachers but many students in Africa that are in school lack a decent education considering their teachers are not properly educated. This is a huge issue considering around ten million students drop out each year and many of the students that are still remaining in school are unable to perform simple tasks corresponding with their academic level. In order to provide equal educational opportunities to students living in different parts of Africa, more infrastructure needs to be added to educators.

What is causing this poor education system? In Africa the education system is a cycle that feeds on itself, the people born poor cannot get a good education, and without a good education, they remain poor. Lumkile Mondi brings up the issue of low-quality education in South Africa saying “The standards of education have been lowered to absorb as many people as possible…. The approach of ‘access at all costs’ is compromising quality in our higher education system. Education is key to all countries that have moved up the manufacturing value chain. If we bungle education, as we are doing, we are doomed to fail.” Mondi is pointing out that rather than focusing on the quality of education provided to the students, the focus is on providing education for all. Even though providing education for all is the goal, it will decrease the quality if it the only factor that is considering What Africa is lacking is that the schools in different regions are provided with different resources which widen the education gap. The quality of the educators in the schools especially in poor areas are also very bad and are one of the main reasons this system is so poor.

Multiple reasons have influenced Africa's poor education but one of the main reasons would be that education is so poor in Africa is due to the low commitment provided by the teachers and students due to the poor infrastructure. Julius Agbor “This in turn negatively impacts the quality of education for rural-area children since even getting to school is a more difficult challenge and illness of a pupil or a family member may force the pupil to drop out of school entirely.” The school is becoming a great challenge for the students which is no surprise why there has been a massive dropout rate. However, this poor education is also due to the system since “the teachers a product in the system which they operate” (Watkins). This comes to show that an improvement in infrastructure can also change the teacher's situation which will overall give a better education to the students.

The education system in Africa lacks basic teaching skills, the teachers are not well educated and thus are not able to educate the students well either. In order to refrain students from dropping out, better material needs to be taught and the school's infrastructure must be improved. If the schools in Africa will be improved the economy of Africa will as well and many children in South Africa will live better lives and more successful futures.

Annotated Bibliography

Agbor, Julius. "Poverty, Inequality and Africa's Education Crisis | Brookings Institution."Brookings. Brookings, 28 July 2016. Web. 17 Mar. 2017. https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/poverty-inequality-and-africas-education-crisis/ This source also comes from Brookings. Brookings Institution has been publishing articles for over a 100 years and even though there are some liberal biases I  made sure to find an article that was more factual. This article talks about not only how many children attending school in Africa will not be able to gain life skills but also how the poverty is creating a poorer education. This article helped me discuss how in poorer parts of Africa the education will not be very good and how this will cause long term effects, especially since many of these students in Africa will not be gaining the skills necessary for them to strive and to be successful. This source also talked about solutions for what the African government could do. The solutions to fixing this issue were very useful since the brought up many points I had not thought about and overall this was a very informative article about the poverty and its effects in Africa.

CNN. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2017. http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/13/opinion/children-education-africa-mbengue/ The Source came from CNN which makes it reliable since CNN is one of the most known and famous news sources. CNN is considered to be a very reliable source and thus I used this article for my essay. The article discusses how many children in Africa lack education opportunities due to their parents who are uneducated but also due to the fact the government is not doing very much which is causing great educational gasp's across Africa. This source was useful since it helped me write about the educational gaps across different parts of Africa and why there were such differences in the quality of those schools in that area.

"Education and Gender Equality." UNICEF Worldwide. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2017. https://www.unicef.org/esaro/5481_education_gender.html This source is a reliable source because it comes from UNICEF. UNICEF is a children's emergency fund that has done great works in developing countries. I used this source since it helped me not only discuss the poor education in South Africa but it also provided me with a different viewpoint which was that there is a gender inequality in the schools. None of the articles has really provided me with this issue before and therefore this perspective was really interesting. I also used this article in order to talk about the work UNICEF has done to help provide Education for more students and to talk about what needs to change in the school system to provide quality education to everyone.

Nkosi, Milton. "Is South Africa's Education System Really 'in Crisis'?" BBC News. BBC, 29 Jan. 2016. Web. 17 Mar. 2017.http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35427853. This source is from BBC news, BBC news is a very well known news source that is mostly reliable. It is mostly reliable because it has some liberal bias. However the article I looked at discussed facts and used data, therefore, it was more reliable since it was more factual. I mainly used this source to discuss the poor teaching in Africa and to talk about the classroom environments that students in Africa face. This helped me write my essay because a lot of my essay revolves around writing the poor education system and how much of it is due to the poor classrooms and poor teaching.

"South Africa Can Expect Zero Growth. Its Problems Are Largely Homemade [analysis]." Africa News Service, 26 July 2016. Student Resources in Context, link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A459226240/SUIC?u=los42754&xid=d1702596. Accessed 5 Mar. 2017. This source came from the online data bases and therefore it is a reliable source. The article is from the African news service and was published by an author from the University of Witwatersrand and therefore since it is from Africa it should have reliable and accurate data.  The article discussed how the poor education was having negative effects on the economy and how education policies need to be created to keep children in school and have them be successful. This source was very helpful in discussing the poor education policies in Africa and their effect on the economy.

Watkins, Kevin. "Too Little Access, Not Enough Learning: Africa's Twin Deficit in Education | Brookings Institution." Brookings. Brookings, 28 July 2016. Web. 17 Mar. 2017. https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/too-little-access-not-enough-learning-africas-twin-deficit-in-education/. This source came from Brookings Institution, Brookings Institution is a reliable source that has been publishing articles for over a 100 years. Even though Brookings is a reliable source it is an Institution that is liberal so the articles may have a few biases. However, this did not affect the article very much since the article is talking about the little access students in Africa have to a sufficient education. This source was used as a source for one of my quotes in which I discussed how teachers are not well educated thus causing harm to the student's education. I used this source since it had great data and evidence to support its claims and it helped me get more information on why Africa's education system is so poor.