Challenges of and Approaches to Expanding Learning Opportunities in Africa

In accordance with its terms of reference, the main tasks of the Study on Preparation for Life and Work with a Focus on Basic Education (Primary and Secondary) in Developing African Countries were to examine the basic education (written) curricula of a range of African countries to assess the extent to which they provided opportunities to young people to develop practical and useful competencies and skills. A further task was to set this information in a broader context by analysing and describing the approaches to competency and skill development adopted in contexts outside Africa.

Life and work are strongly inter-connected and preparation for both ought to take into account
current developments. What does it mean to live and work in the twenty-first century? What is different in comparison to the past, and what is to be envisaged with regard to the future? The curriculum (especially in its written form, which sets broader or more specific guidelines for learning) is only one of the factors impacting on individual and societal development, and has a mediated influence. Even a good curriculum is not effective per se, but reaches students based on teachers’ facilitation, in specific conditions. However, it is useful and interesting to analyse the written / intended curriculum – and its discourse - for it reflects in many respects the ways societies envisage learning and preparation for life and work through mission statements, rationales, learning objectives and outcomes, the selection and organisation of the learning content, teaching and learning methods, as well as the ways learning is assessed and valued.

The Study aims to provide a comprehensive overview of how preparation for life and work is being emphasised in the written curriculum of selected Sub-Saharan African countries (Angola,
Botswana, Burundi, Congo, Kenya, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa), as well
as of developed countries such as Australia (New South Wales) and United Kingdom (England).
Given their emphasis on expanding basic education from 4/6 to 8/9 years, Sub-Saharan countries tend to focus increasingly on lower secondary education (usually Grades 6/7 to 8/9), reckoned as an education stage in need of substantive (re)construction. Most of such processes of (re)constructing lower secondary education envisage the development of life-relevant competencies in learners. This is proven by comprehensive processes of structural changes accompanied by curriculum and other reforms, such as in the realm of assessment and teacher education and training.

The research was thus focusing on identifying meaningful solutions to integrate competency - based approaches in basic education in a sustainable way. Throughout the Study, the authors preferred to use the term ‘competency’ (plural ‘competencies’) as an ‘umbrella-term’ embedding knowledge, values, skills, attitudes, behaviours, patterns of thinking. The terms ‘competency’ and ‘skills’ are sometimes used as synonyms in the international pedagogical literature, however in this Study the term ‘competency’ is considered an overarching concept: as shown further on in Section 2 of the present Study, ‘competencies’ represent the capacity individuals have to mobilize, in an independent and effective way, their knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, etc., in order to give appropriate responses to challenges of different kind.