Eswatini’s slim chances of attaining high income status
MBABANE – According to the World Bank, Eswatini’s aspirations of becoming a high income country by 2050 are currently quite slim.
This is according to Eswatini’s Human Capital Index.
It is currently at 0.48, which means that emaSwati born today, would only be 48 per cent as productive when they grow up, as they could, if they were to attain good health and complete available education by the age of 18.
The index is a summary measure of the amount of human capital that a child born today can expect to acquire by age 18, given the risks of poor health and poor education that prevails in the country where the child lives.
However, the recent declaration of 2024 by the African Union (AU) as its first year of education could not have come at a better time.
OFFICIAL LAUNCH
This was revealed by Resident Representative, Eswatini, Eastern and Southern Africa (AFE) Region, World Bank Representative Ikechi Okorie, during the official launch of the Strengthening Early Childhood and Basic Education Systems to support Human Capital Development Project.
He put a little spotlight on why education was important and foundational learning was fundamental through a personal story he shared during the launch.
He relayed that he grew up in a household of teachers and shared that his father was a high school superintendent, while his mother was a primary school head teacher.
Okorie shared that he grew up believing that a teacher’s reward lay up above and that teaching was a noble profession and a calling, for which one should not expect to be paid much. “But my parents also believed in Benjamin Franklin and his saying that ‘investment in education pays the greatest interest! Hence their greatest gift to me and all my siblings,” he said.
Elaborating, he said indeed, education paid the greatest interest because it opened the doors to opportunities, doors that all should take deliberate steps to walk through. He said education was also the great equiliser, and investment that allowed children from the rough side of town or the southside as it were, to rise and make his or her life better.
“When I think about the opportunities that education offers, I am often reminded of a song by the American Hip Hop legend, Tupac Shakur: ‘The Rose that Grew from Concrete’, as it highlights that no matter where you come from, you can flourish, and education is key,” he said.
GREATEST AFRICAN LEADERS
Okorie also cited one of the greatest African leaders, Nelson Mandela who recognised the foundational importance of learning when he said: “It is not beyond our power to create a world in which all children have access to good education. Those who do not believe this have small imaginations.”
The resident representative added that since the 1960s era of independence, a commitment to education has marked the progress experienced by many African countries. For Eswatini he said, the commitment had led to universal enrolment at primary level driven by the free primary education (FPE) programme.
However, he pointed out that more than half of emaSwati under 25 years, exploiting the demographic dividend would require strategic policy choices. Choices that must not only be prioritised but also be intentional.
DELIBERATE CHOICES
“This means deliberate choices aimed at improving both the completion rates for primary which is at, 79.7 per cent, while the completion for lower secondary was 57.3 per cent and upper secondary 36.5 per cent,” he said.
He revealed that recent data showed that only 49 per cent of children aged 7-14 demonstrated foundational reading skills and a mere 28.9 per cent, foundational numeracy skills.
Foundational skills are the building blocks of reading. The goal is to help students comprehend the texts they read. Students must develop proficiency with print concepts, phonological and phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency skills; which will help them better understand texts. Meanwhile Numeracy: It is the ability to reason and to apply. simple numerical concepts. Basic numeracy skills consist of comprehending fundamental arith
metical operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
Okorie elaborated and said Eswatini’s Human Capital Index was currently at 0.48, which meant that emaSwati born today would only be 48 per cent as productive when they grow up, as they could if they were to attain good health and complete available education by the age of 18.
“These shortcomings jeopardise the opportunity that a youthful population offers for economic transformation; it makes it an onerous task for Eswatini to achieve its ambition of becoming a high income country by 2050,” he said.
FIRST YEAR OF EDUCATION
The resident representative however revealed that the declaration of 2024 by the AU as its first year of education could not have come at a better time. He said it enforces the declaration at the 2023 African Human Capital Summit in Dar es Salaam that emphasises that Africa’s most vital asset was its people, and that time, was of essence.
He said beyond the declarations, it was important for all Africans to work together to better prepare for a future, where education and knowledge was preeminent. “That is an education system that places emphasis on 21st century skills. A system which recognises that economic prosperity and growth is increasingly driven by innovation,” he said.
Adding, Okorie said the education system should be a system that acknowledged that the 21st and 22nd century would be contested in the realm of knowledge.
He highlighted on the need to be cognisant that the education system must be one that understood that the key was no longer simply about whether one could produce something they had learned.
Instead, he said it was centred on whether they could extrapolate from what they knew and applied their knowledge in a novel and changing setting.
“A system that acknowledged that if learners learn, merely to memorise and reproduce knowledge and skills, they risk being prepared for jobs that are in fact disappearing,” he said.
EDUCATION AND TRAINING
“A system that seeks to answer such questions as: How can education and training develop the skills that matter for the future? How can schools and universities prepare our youths for a world where work can be digitised, automated and green?”
He said he was, therefore, delighted that through the project, the World Bank together with such partners as the Global Partnership on Education (GPE) were supporting Eswatini to put in place the building blocks that were critical to improving service delivery in early childhood development, foundational learning and secondary education to better prepare children and the youth for their future.
The resident representative acknowledged that, as much as it may not be appealing at present, the building blocks for the next 20-25 years must start now, as after all education was the passport to the future and the future belonged to those who prepared for it today.
As a representative of the World Bank, he said they were glad to work with Eswatini on the project for the benefit of all emaSwati. “What has been achieved so far in putting this project together is just the first lap of a team run,” he said.
He highlighted the need to bear in mind that this was only the beginning of a challenging and hopefully an exciting journey. “A bigger word awaits us all, that is implementation. And when we talk of implementation, we mean stronger institutional collaboration and coordination amongst all stakeholders being government, multilateral and bilateral partners, teachers and teachers unions, students; communities amongst many other stakeholders,” said Okorie.
SHARPEN THEIR SKILLS
He urged the implementers of the programme to sharpen their skills which would undoubtedly be put to the test. He advised them to also deepen their collaborative and leadership skills to create a safe space/platform as well as opportunities for wider community participation; social dialogue; feedback and accountability.
He closed his remarks with a quote from Eric Hoffer, the American social and moral Philosopher who said: “In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”
He said he hoped the words would stay in their minds as they tried to empower the future generations of emaSwati with new tools to produce a better world; to adapt to the educational policies to a new, more competitive and globalised reality.