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This study is based on research on secondary textbook and school library provision in Botswana, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Togo, as well as existing recent country reports on textbook provision and an extensive desk research. Considerable variations exist in Sub-Saharan African textbook requirements needed to meet secondary curriculum specifications just as significant differences exist between and within countries in regard to the average price of recommended textbooks. Some countries have no approved textbooks list. This World Bank Working Paper aims to discuss the textbook situation in Sub-Saharan Africa with a special focus on secondary textbook availability, cost and financing, distribution and publishing, and the status of school libraries. Its objective is to analyze the issues in secondary textbook and school library provision and to provide some options and strategies for improvement.

This World Bank report is a rich compilation of information on teaching and learning materials (TLM) in Africa based on the extensive and multi-faceted experience of the author's work in the education sector in Africa. The study examines a wide range of issues around TLM provision including curriculum, literacy and numeracy, language of instruction policy, procurement and distribution challenges, TLM development and production and their availability, management and usage in schools. It also looks at the role of information and communication technology (ICT) based TLMs and their availability. The study recognizes that improved TLM system management is a critical component in achieving affordable and sustainable TLM provision for all students. This study, which draws from more than 40 Anglophone, Francophone, Lusophone, and Arabic-speaking countries will be particularly useful for policymakers, development partners, and other stakeholders attempting to understand the wide range of issues surrounding the complexity of textbook provision in Sub Saharan Africa.

This book offers policy options that can help reduce textbook costs and increase their supply. The book explores, in depth, the cost and financial barriers that restrict textbook availability in schools across much of the region, as well as policies successfully adapted in other countries. The book also provides a thorough assessment of the pros and cons of digital teaching and learning materials and cautions against the assumption that they can immediately replace printed textbooks.

'Developing Science, Mathematics and ICT in Secondary Education' is based on country studies from ten Sub-Saharan African countries: Botswana, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, and a literature review. It reveals a number of huge challenges in science, mathematics and ICT (SMICT) education in sub-Saharan Africa: poorly-resourced schools; large classes; a curriculum hardly relevant to the daily lives of students; a lack of qualified teachers; and inadequate teacher education programs. Through examining country case studies, this paper discusses the lessons for improvement of SMICT in secondary education in Africa.

Influential reports about the “learning crisis” in the global South generally pay insufficient attention to social inequalities in learning. In this study, we explore the association between family socioeconomic status and learning outcomes in 10 francophone African countries using data from the Programme for the Analysis of Education Systems, a standardized assessment of pupils’ mathematics and reading competence at the end of primary school. We start by showing that learning outcomes among grade 6 pupils are both poor and highly stratified. We then develop and test a conceptual framework that highlights three mechanisms through which family socioeconomic status might contribute to learning: (1) educational resources at home, (2) health and well-being, and (3) differences in school quality. We find that most of the effect of family background on learning outcomes operates through school quality, which results from a combination of the unequal distribution of resources (such as teachers and textbooks) across schools and high socioeconomic segregation between schools. On the basis of these results, we suggest that most countries in the region could improve equity as well as overall performance by “raising the floor” in school quality.

Children comprise the largest proportion of the population in sub-Saharan Africa. Of these, millions are orphaned. Orphanhood increases the likelihood of growing up in poverty, dropping out of school, and becoming infected with HIV. Therefore, programs aimed at securing a healthy developmental trajectory for these orphaned children are desperately needed. We conducted a two-arm cluster-randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of a family-level economic strengthening intervention with regard to school attendance, school grades, and self-esteem in AIDS-orphaned adolescents aged 12–16 years from 10 public rural primary schools in southern Uganda. Children were randomly assigned to receive usual care (counseling, school uniforms, school lunch, notebooks, and textbooks), “bolstered” with mentorship from a near-peer (control condition, n  = 167), or to receive bolstered usual care plus a family-level economic strengthening intervention in the form of a matched Child Savings Account (Suubi-Maka treatment arm, n  = 179). The two groups did not differ at baseline, but 24 months later, children in the Suubi-Maka treatment arm reported significantly better educational outcomes, lower levels of hopelessness, and higher levels of self-concept compared to participants in the control condition. Our study contributes to the ongoing debate on how to address the developmental impacts of the increasing numbers of orphaned and vulnerable children and adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa, especially those affected by HIV/AIDS. Our findings indicate that innovative family-level economic strengthening programs, over and above bolstered usual care that includes psychosocial interventions for young people, may have positive developmental impacts related to education, health, and psychosocial functioning.

Though the overthrow and exile of Napoleon in 1815 is a familiar episode in modern history, it is not well known that just a few months later, British colonisers toppled and banished the last king in Ceylon. Beginning with that case, this volume examines the deposition and exile of indigenous monarchs by the British and French - with examples in India, Burma, Malaysia, Vietnam, Madagascar, Tunisia and Morocco - from the early nineteenth century down to the eve of decolonisation. It argues that removal of native sovereigns, and sometimes abolition of dynasties, provided a powerful strategy used by colonisers, though European overlords were seldom capable of quelling resistance in the conquered countries, or of effacing the memory of local monarchies and the legacies they left behind

Textbooks can play an important role in leading the teachers to find meaningful activities and in helping students develop their oral communication skills. However, such textbooks should contained well-designed speaking activities that can be practiced in the classroom by the students so that towards the end of a learning cycle they can communicate with some confidence. This is a qualitative research that aims to analyze the effectiveness of speaking activities present in the grade 12 Learn English: English language class 12, a textbook in use in Mozambican secondary schools. To this end, a questionnaire was used to gather teachers‟ perspectives towards textbook use, and an evaluation checklist was used to analyze the textbook in terms of the effectiveness of its speaking activities. It was observed that this particular textbook gives emphasis to oral communication (60%) over written communication; the speaking activities are designed to promote communication among students; and they mirror real-life situations. Nevertheless, it was pointed that this textbook is not paired with a teacher‟s guide, and it lacks specific conversational strategies that the students could rely on when communicating. So it is recommended that further studies are carried out in large scale in order to determine what and how teaching materials in use in Mozambique can be improved, and to determine what other factors influence the students to fail to communicate in English after finishing their secondary studies.

Background Physiotherapy education and practice have country-specific peculiarities which may limit globalization in health care. This study aimed to characterize physiotherapy practice and treatment preferences, educational qualifications, and research in Nigeria, with a view of providing vital information for transnational integration and collaboration. Methods A cross-sectional survey of 104 Nigerian physiotherapists was conducted. The Physical Therapy Practice Questionnaire and a self-developed proforma were used as survey tools. Results The mean age of respondents was 33.5 ± 9.4 years. About two-fifth of all respondents (39.4%) had an MSc and mostly practice as clinicians (51.0%) in teaching hospitals (34.6%). The respondents were mostly involved in general practice (50.0%), with a caseload of 1–10 patients per day (67.3%). Soft tissue mobilization (83%), proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (76%), breathing exercises (77%), and transcutaneous electrical neuromuscular stimulation (83%) were commonly used. Respondents were familiar databases and evidence-based resources (81.2%) and mostly utilize PubMed (73.3%). Regular case conferences with professional colleagues (47.6%) and treatment planning of between 11 and 30 min (40.6%) were common. Educators spend 1–3 h planning educational work (91.8%). Clinical decision-making is mostly based on professional experience, while journals are the primary resource for educational information. Conclusion Physiotherapy practice in Nigeria is degree based and requires registration board’s licensure. Practitioners deal with a high caseload and utilize a wide range of techniques and modalities and have tendencies to utilize personal experience and research in making clinical decisions. The parity in education and practice with advanced climes inadvertently gives physiotherapy practice in Nigeria a global purview.