São Paulo – In Africa, two thirds of adolescents completed primary school and do not continue studying in secondary school. According to a report disclosed in Paris on Tuesday (25), by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco), between 1990 and 2009, the volume of youths who reached secondary school grew 60%. In the “Global Report on Education”, Unesco estimates that, with each decade, 100 million youths reach secondary school.
Despite showing evolution in primary schooling, this is resulting in pressure on secondary schooling, which is not enough for demand. Subsaharan Africa was where the rate of children continuing their education in the Middle East grew most. It rose from 28% to 43%. However, 21.6 million of these youths are still out of class.
The head of the Unesco statistics department, Albert Motivans, stated that countries have had advances in secondary schooling as more students decide to proceed with their studies. He recognised, however, that it is now necessary to strengthen institutions and secondary schooling.
"We have reached good objectives around the world, especially between 1999 and 2009, when we concentrated our efforts on primary education. But we are seeing low performance in secondary schooling, which must receive greater investment. We know that secondary schooling is expensive, and that it needs more specialized teachers and smaller classrooms,” he said.
*Translated by Mark Ament
