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Why abolish school fees in Africa? The answer seems obvious: to achieve the right to education for all and thus promote equitable participation in economic growth and political action. However, moving from a system based on user fees, which stifled enrollment of the poorest and most vulnerable children, to one of free basic education for everyone has hidden costs if the effort is unplanned or underplanned. The immediate and dramatic influx of students can overburden the education system and compromise quality because of a lack of qualified teachers, an increase in class size, and the loss of school-level funding. Such a result benefits no one. If the elimination of school fees is to make a positive and sustainable impact on school access and learning outcomes, then it must be carefully planned, widely negotiated, and financially supported. Toward these ends, the School Fee Abolition Initiative (SFAI) was launched jointly by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Bank in 2005. The initiative promotes access to quality basic education worldwide through three specific goals: constructing a knowledge base (database and analysis of experiences), providing assistance (technical and financial) to countries developing a national education plan, and building the partnerships that will ensure success. 'Abolishing School Fees in Africa' is the product of a SFAI workshop, \"School Fee Abolition: Building on What We Know and Defining Sustained Support,\" held in Kenya in 2006. The book begins with a comparative overview of the processes, challenges, and lessons learned by five countries that had already abolished school fees: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and Mozambique. The subsequent chapters delineate the actual experiences of each of the countries in planning and implementing their policies. This volume will be invaluable to national policy makers and their development partners—civil society, the private sector, development agencies—in eff orts to open access to a quality basic education to all.

Are school-based management reforms improving education? This book analyzes the theory and evidence behind decentralized decision-making in schools worldwide. Decentralized Decision-Making in Schools explores the impact of school-based management (SBM) reforms across diverse countries. It examines how empowering principals and teachers, and strengthening parental involvement, affects educational outcomes. The authors review over 20 country experiences, providing insights into the effectiveness of SBM in various contexts. * Discover the key factors for successful SBM implementation. * Understand the impact of SBM on student achievement and attendance. * Learn how to design effective education projects with decentralized authority. This insightful analysis is for education officials, policymakers, and researchers seeking evidence-based strategies for improving school governance and student outcomes.

This report finds that in developing countries over the past 15 years, high priority was accorded to increasing enrolments in primary schools, but much less attention was directed to the crucial issue of whether children are learning adequately. The report recommends that countries, the World Bank and development partners give the same emphasis to learning outcomes as to access, so that the world's increasing investments in primary education have a far greater impact on poverty reduction and national development. The World Bank is the largest provider of external financial support to education in developing world. Since 1963, it has transferred about US$36.5 billion for education, over $14 billion of which has been for primary education. Its current lending portfolio consists of about 143 operations in 88 countries amounting to US$8.4 billion. (DIPF/Orig.).

As in most countries worldwide, Sub-Saharan African countries are striving to build their human capital so they can compete for jobs and investments in an increasingly globalized world. In this region, which includes the largest number of countries that have not yet attained universal primary schooling, the ambitions and aspirations of Sub-Saharan African countries and their youth far exceed this basic goal. Over the past 20 years, educational levels have risen sharply across Sub-Saharan Africa. Already hard at work to provide places in primary schools for all children, most countries of the region are also rapidly expanding access to secondary and tertiary levels of education. Alongside this quantitative push is a growing awareness of the need to make sure that students are learning and acquiring the skills needed for life and work. Achieving education of acceptable quality is perhaps an even greater challenge than providing enough school places for all. Thus, Sub-Saharan African countries are simultaneously confronting many difficult challenges in the education sector, and much is at stake. This book gives those concerned with education in Sub-Saharan Africa an analysis of the sector from a cross-country perspective, aimed at drawing lessons that individual country studies alone cannot provide. A comparative perspective is useful not only to show the range of possibilities in key education policy variables but also to learn from the best performers in the region. (Although the report covers 47 Sub- Saharan African countries whenever possible, some parts of the analysis center on the region's low-income countries, in particular, a sample of 33 low-income countries). Although countries ultimately must make their own policy choices and decide what works best in their particular circumstances, Sub-Saharan African countries can benefit from learning about the experiences of other countries that are faced with, or have gone through, similar development paths. Given the large number of countries included in the analysis, the book finds that Sub-Saharan African countries have more choices and more room for maneuver than will appear if attention were focused on only one or a few country experiences. Countries can make better choices when understanding the breadth of policy choices available to them. They are well advised, however, to evaluate the applicability of policy options to their contexts and to pilot and evaluate the results for performance and subsequent improvement.

All countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) face the prospect of a substantial increase in the number of primary school completers in the coming years. Although initial conditions vary widely from country to country, this increase will inevitably intensify pressure on the education system, particularly at the secondary and tertiary levels. African countries may thus find it timely to align their education policies and strategies to the emerging challenges. A key goal is to ensure that the education system continues to develop in an efficient, equitable, and fiscally sustainable manner even as it expands to accommodate the rising numbers seeking a place in secondary and tertiary education. The rest of this report is organized as follows. Chapter two elaborates the policy context for education development in SSA. Chapter three explains the methodology and data sources. Chapter four examines the challenges and constraints posed by the sheer volume of increases in enrollments in post-primary education with which most education systems in SSA must grapple in the coming years. Taking these constraints into account, the report evaluates the scope for policy development from three perspectives in the subsequent chapters: the coverage of education systems (chapter five), the quality and cost of service delivery (chapter six), and the division of financing by public and private sources (chapter seven). The fiscal implications of plausible policy packages that SSA countries might consider are assessed in chapter eight. Chapter nine seems up the general conclusions of the report.

The aim of this volume is to draw international attention to the key role that education can play in both preventing conflict and in reconstructing post-conflict societies. The author also hopes to alert developing countries and donors alike to the devastating consequences of conflict on a country's education systems and outcomes, as well to emphasize the importance of maximizing the opportunities to reform education systems presented by a reconstruction setting, adopting a long-term development perspective, and emphasizing equity and quality in the delivery of education services. Every education system has the potential to exacerbate the conditions that contribute to violent conflict. Based on this notion, the author argues that education warrants high priority in both humanitarian response and post-conflict reconstruction. The central message of this book is that education plays key role in both conflict prevention and in the reconstruction of post-conflict societies. It highlights significant findings on education and post-conflict reconstruction drawn from thorough research and literature review, a survey and database of key indicators for 52 conflict-affected countries, and a review of 12 country studies.

This review was prepared jointly by the World Bank Group and the World Food Programme (WFP), building on the comparative advantages of both organizations. It examines the evidence base for school feeding programs with the objective of better understanding how to develop and implement effective school feeding programs in two contexts: a productive safety net, as part of the response to the social shocks of the global food, fuel and financial crises, and a fiscally sustainable investment in human capital, as part of long-term global efforts to achieve Education for All and provide social protection to the poor.

As part of the Country Status Report series, this book provides a comprehensive review of the status of education in post-conflict South Sudan. It is a result of collaborative work between MOE, key education stakeholders in South Sudan, and the World Bank. The aim is to contribute to the development of a shared vision for the future of the education system between government, citizens, and partners of the new South Sudan.With the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005 began the establishment of a new education system specifically for South Sudan. Primary school enrollments approximately doubled between 2005 and 2009 from 0.7 million to 1.4 million; yet, the recent rapid growth has resulted in a concentration of students in the early grades, a high proportion of overage students, repetition, dropout, and weak levels of student learning. Thanks to the detail it offers, this book provides a solid foundation for dialogue about the future of education in South Sudan and will immediately be used to inform the preparation of an Education Sector Plan for the new country. The book underlines the strong progress that South Sudan has made in terms of expanding access to education, but also the many challenges that lie ahead. In particular, it sheds light on such questions as: Is everyone getting a chance at education? How much are students learning? What is the situation of schools and service delivery? What is South Sudan investing in education and how is it using these resources? Are the resources well-deployed and managed to ensure efficient functioning of the education system? The book offers a valuable and comprehensive resource for anyone interested in education in South Sudan.

This working paper is based on country case studies of Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Madagascar, Tanzania, and Uganda, and an extensive literature review. In many parts of Africa, the demand for secondary teachers substantially exceeds the supply, due to factors such as secondary teacher attrition, bottlenecks in the teacher preparation system, and perceived unattractive conditions of service. Few countries have strong policies, strategies, and programs for recruiting able secondary school graduates to secondary teaching. The paper suggests several critical and promising areas for improvement in the quality of secondary teachers through new approaches to recruitment; pre-service and in-service teacher development; and improvements in the deployment, utilization, compensation, and conditions of service for teachers.

'School Construction Strategies for Universal Primary Education in Africa' examines the scope of the infrastructure challenge in Sub-Saharan Africa and the constraints to scaling up at an affordable cost.