Out-of-School Children and Youth: A Contemporary View from Selected African Commonwealth Countries

Abstract

This publication on out-of-school children (OOSC) in Commonwealth Africa is already informing priorities in COL’s work in open schooling. The report provides an overview of key indicators for all nineteen Commonwealth Africa countries as well as contextual case studies of eight countries for which representatives were available to verify or update the data that had been collected. While significant progress has been made towards universal primary education, there remain challenges in primary and secondary completion, and in the key transitions from primary to secondary and from lower secondary to senior secondary. Many countries have large and growing numbers of youths who are not in employment nor in education and training, for whom some form of alternative open schooling provision will be needed.