AU chief says education key to ending poverty
STRENGTHENING education in Africa and offering it for free to poor children was among the ways of turning around the economy of the impoverished continent, said outgoing AU commission chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma.
Delivering her state of the AU report in Durban, Dlamini Zuma said the continent was already showing success in increasing universities. She also supported South African students’ call for free education.
She said there were poorer countries on the continent that were already offering free education up to post-PhD level.
“Students don’t pay for whatever they want to study precisely because they (countries) recognised that education is the quickest equaliser in terms of the gap between the poor and the rich.”
Dlamini Zuma said the AU had started a skills revolution, which was mostly focused on providing quality education on the continent.
She said the AU had managed to work with various countries in increasing the number of universities to up to 200 that were participating in skills development. The AU’s main focus included medicine, mechanical engineering, agriculture, economics and geology.
She said that although number of universities had grown since the early 1990s, Africa had less that 10% access to university.
“If we are below 10%, it means we are reproducing the elite. We have to be above 40% to be at the universal acceptance,” she said.
She added that the continent was improving in upholding democratic principles, although there were countries where this was still a challenge.
She said the continent was also capable of running its own justice system as a number of countries were pulling out of International Criminal Court. She said the judges in Africa were independent and respected the rule of law.