Education Commons^™

Primary Schooling In Sub-Saharan Africa: Recent Trends And Current Challenges, Cynthia B. Lloyd, Paul C. Hewett

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

At the dawn of the twenty-first century we estimate that more than 37 million young adolescents aged 10-14 in sub-Saharan Africa will not complete primary school. Our estimates are based on data from nationally representative Demographic and Health Surveys from 26 countries, collectively representing 83 percent of the sub-Saharan youth population. This number is nearly twice the entire population of children aged 10-14 in the United States, virtually all of whom will complete primary school. Reducing the number of uneducated African youth is a primary objective of the United Nations as laid out in the Millennium Development Goal for education, …