Tom Bennett, Director and Founder of researchEd in the United Kingdom, on what evidence tells us about the future and purpose of education.



BY JILL DE VILLIERS



AS COVID-19 SWEPT THROUGH THE WORLD, SOME AREAS OF OUR lives were more deeply affected than others, one of them being education. Before the pandemic, technology had started taking a more prominent place in education, and online learning was being integrated into the system. 



When Covid-19 struck, schools and tertiary institutions were forced to change their models rapidly, migrating to digital options. Soon, the talk pivoted to blended learning and hybrid solutions, combining in-person and virtual classrooms and teaching methods. How likely are we to return to old teaching methods and classroom settings, we ask educationist, author and speaker Tom Bennett, who hails from the United Kingdom (UK) and is the Director and Founder of researchED. 



<div class="wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile" style="grid-template-columns:34% auto"><figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="768" height="1024" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Tom-Bennett_1-768x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-51596 size-full" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Tom-Bennett_1-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Tom-Bennett_1-225x300.jpg 225w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Tom-Bennett_1-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Tom-Bennett_1-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Tom-Bennett_1-scaled.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></figure><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">Tom Bennett will deliver a talk during the 2021 Future of Education Virtual Summit, with the theme ‘Redefining the Purpose of Education’ on July 29, held in partnership with FORBES AFRICA and CNBC Africa</blockquote>
</div></div>



“After Covid, I see education 95% snapping back to where it was before, because the face-toface model of education simply cannot be beaten in most circumstances. The one benefit of the Covid experience has been that people the world over have seen how hard it is to home school children, how much blended learning often lacks compared to face-to-face… but also we have learned remote learning is not something impossible to manage and that where it is useful, we have lost our fear of trying it. For example, in the UK, whenever it snows, schools often shut and nothing gets done. But now, no more snow days, although I’m not sure that children and staff are as happy about that!” Bennett says. 



He was a teacher in the East End of London for 13 years before founding researchED, which he describes as “an international non-profit that asks simple questions that can change the world”. The organization brings together everyone within the educational ecosystem – “not just the privileged priest class of education, but teaching assistants, administrators, teachers, as well as academics, leaders and researchers – to share their thoughts about what they do, and what evidence informs what they do.” 



They travel the world, presenting low-cost, inclusive and accessible events, which are particularly popular among teaching staff, who are hungry for answers to questions like: ‘How can I achieve what I want, without struggling blindly in the dark? What does the evidence tell me? When do things work, and when do they not work?’ 



Bennett has written four books on classroom behavior and evidence-informed education. “Ideas about how we manage behavior are still stuck in the 19th century, and too many teachers and schools are forced to reinvent the wheel every generation instead of building upon what we have found to work and improving upon it,” he explains. 



“Teachers rarely get an evidence-informed training as they begin their careers, and many schools still make decisions based on intuition, gut feeling and hunches. But children – and teachers – deserve much better than that. We can do much better than that.” 



Lately, we have seen a burgeoning of technology solutions to a myriad of questions that Bennett says teachers aren’t asking. 



“Tech companies are often guilty of selling solutions to problems no one has, and ignoring the lack of evidence to back up the boldest of their claims. That’s not to say that tech doesn’t offer enormous opportunities to supplement and support education, but also to say that schools and countries have poured billions into tech promises that have rarely materialized.



“Evidence tells us many things that teachers can incorporate into their classrooms with only a little effort and with huge dividends: low-stakes retrieval practise (frequent testing) secures lesson retention enormously; being aware of cognitive load theory teaches us the students need information presented in manageable chunks, and that teachers should favour direct instruction with novice learners before allowing them too much freedom to drive their own studies. 



This is especially relevant with blended forms of learning, where beginning learners often drown in what they don’t know, and might lack the motivation and the foundational knowledge how to drive their own learning at home.” And finally, how does Bennett see the purpose of education? 



“The beauty of education is it has no intrinsic purpose. We have purposes for education. So when we ask ‘How should we educate?’ Then we have to first ask, ‘What do we think the aim of this education is for?’ Only once we have answered that can we rationally begin to decide what we need to do, whether we’re trying to teach the best of what has been thought and said, prepare citizens for the future, or help children become fully rounded human beings.&#8221;

Focus on raised hands in classroom

Education: What We Can Do Better

TOPLINE Evidence is growing that reopening schools with proper precautions will not increase the spread of Covid-19, with the Centers for Disease Control concluding Tuesday that in-person learning is not causing significant outbreaks—but the agency warned indoor athletics may derail efforts for safe in-person schooling.



<h4 id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h4>



The CDC&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7004e3.htm?s_cid=mm7004e3_w" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">evaluated&nbsp;</a>17 schools in rural Wisconsin from August and November, and found only seven students (3.7%)—no staff—contracted the virus from school.



Those schools were able to limit Covid-19 by wearing masks, separating students into groups of 11-20, social distancing and having established quarantine measures when a student did become infected, the study says.



Another study released by the CDC Tuesday found that an indoor wrestling tournament in Florida caused 30% of attendees to become infected, leading the researchers to&nbsp;<a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2775875" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">note&nbsp;</a>that indoor athletics lacking proper social distancing and other safety measures “could jeopardize” school Covid-19 safety precautions.&nbsp;



Several recent&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6950e3.htm?s_cid=mm6950e3_w" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">studies</a>, both in the U.S. and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/children-and-school-settings-covid-19-transmission" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">abroad</a>, have reached similar conclusions, including a&nbsp;<a href="https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/early/2021/01/06/peds.2020-048090.full.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study&nbsp;</a>in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics finding in-school transmission was “extremely limited” during the first nine weeks of in-person instruction in North Carolina.



<h4 id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h4>



&nbsp;“As many schools have reopened for in-person instruction in some parts of the US as well as internationally, school-related cases of COVID-19 have been reported, but there has been little evidence that schools have contributed meaningfully to increased community transmission,” the CDC researchers&nbsp;<a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2775875" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">wrote&nbsp;</a>in the Journal of the American Medical Association.



<h4 id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h4>



The school reopening debate has gripped districts across the country for the entirety of the pandemic. For the fall 2020 term, 24% of school public districts were fully online, while 51% were using a hybrid model and 17% were fully open for in-person instruction,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mchdata.com/covid19/schoolclosings" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according&nbsp;</a>to data firm MCH. Though large school districts and local officials, recognizing the harms of distance learning on students, are starting to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/school-districts-reopening-coronavirus/2020/10/19/3791c952-0ffb-11eb-8074-0e943a91bf08_story.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">push&nbsp;</a>for full in-person instruction, they are at times at odds with teachers unions, who&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/25/nyregion/montclair-schools-covid.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">argue&nbsp;</a>that districts aren’t taking strong enough measures to protect teachers.



<h4 id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h4>



There was a large outbreak linked to school reopenings in Israel last spring. But the CDC researchers say the outbreak was tied to crowded classrooms, exemption from face mask use and “continuous air conditioning that recycled interior air in closed rooms during a heat wave.”



By Rachel Sandler, Forbes Staff

Empty classroom at a school in central Naples. After the

Covid-19 Doesn’t Spread In Schools With Safety Precautions, CDC Reports—But Sports Are A Different Story

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, announced Tuesday morning in an Instagram post that the first Bezos Academy — a free preschool for children coming from low-income families — will launch in October in a town to the south of Seattle.



“This classroom is just the beginning,” Bezos wrote, captioning a photo of a classroom bookshelf, lined with titles such as Pita &amp; Ralph’s Rotten Day and My Papi Has A Motorcycle. “The @bezosacademy opens its doors on Oct. 19th. This one in Des Moines, WA, is the first of many free preschools that we’ll be opening for underserved children.”



<figure class="wp-block-embed-instagram wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-instagram"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
https://www.instagram.com/p/CFcMd_RnQ_I/?igshid=k90rmxrvwczf
</div></figure>



The preschool will have a year-round curriculum, five days a week, for children 3-5 years old. According to the Bezos Day One website, the team selected to put the preschool in Des Moines, a town to the south of Seattle based on income levels, rates of participation in free and reduced-cost meal programs, gaps in access to license childcare providers, and buy-in from local businesses who will support the growth of the preschool. It will continue to use this kind of data set for choosing locations to other schools.



Bezos first announced his intention to build a network of preschools in November 2018, when he launched the $2 billion Bezos Day One Fund. The fund has two priorities: giving to nonprofits that are helping homeless families, and building a network of preschools. Since its launch, the fund has given around $100 million a year to a variety of homeless-focused nonprofits, the Amazon founder has remained relatively quiet about the schools initiative, until today.



The schools will be inspired by Montessori, a method of education where curriculums are more hands-on, collaborative, and change based on the individual student’s own interests. Bezos attended a Montessori school when he was 2 years old in Albuquerque, New Mexico. “You know, intuitively, I think it was probably a very formative experience for me to be able to go to those classes, in that environment, and be so stimulated at an early age,” Bezos told Montessori Life magazine in a 2000 interview. “I don’t actually know what the scientific research shows, but intuitively I have to imagine that it’s good for little kids.” In the same interview, Bezos recalled “tracing out letters on sandpaper” and “painting on a big easel.”



The network of preschools will operate under the parent nonprofit organization, also called Bezos Academy. The group is in the process of hiring for a position that will assess the success or failures of the preschool program.



By Angel Au-Yeung, Forbes Staff

Jeff Bezos’s India Visit Marked By Probe and Protests

Jeff Bezos Announces The First Bezos Academy, A Free Preschool For Students From Low-Income Families

Why the foundations of education systems in Africa need to be more inclusive so that no one is left behind.



Covid-19 has confronted us with the greatest education emergency of our lifetime. It interrupted the education of over 90% of the world’s students, exacerbating already existing inequalities and magnifying the global learning crisis. The ripple effects of this pandemic on people’s lives will be felt for years, potentially generations, if more is not done to make sure that exclusion is minimized, and the most vulnerable protected.



Before this pandemic hit, the 2020 Global Education Monitoring Report, All Means All, for which I am a youth advisor, shows that half of the world’s out-of-school children were in sub-Saharan Africa, totalling 97 million children and youth and growing. Without improvement, more than one in 10 adults in the region will not have completed primary school by 2050. Against this backdrop, I also learned that 40% of countries in the region have not supported disadvantaged learners during school shut-downs due to Covid-19.



The 2014-15 Ebola virus epidemic was all too recent to have been erased from planners’ memories. Yet the challenge was too large for any education system to respond effectively. This reeks of potential devastation for some of the most marginalized.



Battling back from this will require getting our priorities right. This isn’t just about the complex decisions to be made about continuing school closures, or re-opening, or finding new hybrid measures, it is also about deciding what emphasis to give to what types of learning.



We have to hope that countries will come up for air from this education emergency with a more inclusive outlook. If we are now fighting to open school doors again, why should that fight extend only to some and not all? Multiple groups still find their education opportunities are determined by their background, identity and ability. In Uganda, for example, less than half of eligible children in refugee-hosting districts have access to pre-school. In Tanzania, only half of children with albinism complete primary school. Equatorial Guinea and Tanzania still enforce a total ban on pregnant girls and young mothers in public schools. Four countries (South Sudan, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Somalia) do not specify a minimum age for marriage. And so the list goes on.



The foundations of education systems in the regions need to be made more inclusive for starters. Despite commitments to achieving inclusive education by 2030, only 2% of countries in sub-Saharan Africa have an education law inclusive of all learners, no matter their background, identity or ability.



But attention needs to be paid to the mechanisms within education systems as well. One survey found that fewer than one in 10 primary school teachers in 10 Francophone countries in our region had any training in inclusive education. Now faced with distance learning and the digital divide, such training is even more important than ever.



Inclusive education requires providing adapted infrastructure and materials and making sure that every child feels welcome in school. In many countries, however, including Mali, Mauritania and Senegal, most primary schools lack separate toilets for girls. This has a huge impact on whether of girls who have begun menstruating want to attend school or not. It is of vital importance in our region, where many students are over-age.



Clearly, finding success in the face of these challenges is not something any country can do alone. Covid-19 will increase costs, not just because of health bills, but also because of teachers’ salaries, technology, and infrastructure implications if social distancing has to be maintained. Both the length of school closures but also GDP scenarios will determine recovery. The GEM Report recently calculated that Covid-19 risks setting aid to education back by six years due to recession.&nbsp;



But, in every crisis, there’s opportunity. And the opportunity we have is to meet the challenge head-on. Business as usual is not enough. We must improve education offerings in the face of uncertainly and prepare this new generation to face and conquer the next crisis that will appear around the corner. We owe it to them. I, for one, will be working with fellow youth activists to make sure this point is heard.



– By Vivian Onano, youth advisor to the Global Education Monitoring Report, UNESCO

Two beautiful African children sitting in Classroom in Bamako, Mali

The Opportunities Young Leaders Are Seeing In Education

Katlego Thwane has had to dip into his own savings, with the Covid-19 crisis, to fund his noble cause, teaching the underprivileged in a South African township.



He is in his twenties, yet turning around the destiny of underprivileged young people around him.



Katlego Thwane, a 28-year-old born and bred in South Africa’s lively township of Soweto, is an educator and founder of the Atlegang Bana Foundation here that caters to primary school learners who struggle to keep up at school and need additional help.



“Our foundation also provides for needy learners from underprivileged backgrounds. One of my biggest campaigns at the foundation every year is to give confidence and motivation to learners for the year ahead,” says Thwane.



He has bagged numerous awards and accolades for his work, as a 2017 Young Community Shaper, 2018 Lead SA hero and featuring on live television show Big Up on SABC Mzansi in 2018.



Growing up, he was a “naughty boy”, as he describes himself, but says many are now astonished at the serious, ambitious young man he has become.



“Teaching has always been a passion of mine. I love seeing change, transformation and grooming leaders, and value their education while being innovative in taking&nbsp;our country forward.”



Thwane has recently established a clothing brand, BANA, under the Atlegang Bana Foundation. He is also currently handing out food parcels to the needy in his community, in partnership with Hollywoodbets.



“The virus has affected us immensely with many parents losing their jobs or taking salary cuts, we are not receiving the financial support as before. This has led to me [dipping] into my own personal pocket and [using it] to buy tutors data for teaching virtually,” says Thwane.



Most schools continue operating online because learners haven’t as yet returned to school, however, this has come with its share of setbacks.



Makosha Masedi, a parent of a Grade 4 learner, says her challenges come with network issues and understanding the tasks given to the child.



“Some of the programs that the work is loaded on to is not friendly for all devices, so submitting and retrieving becomes a problem, as also understanding some of the work,” rues Masedi.



But Thwane powers on, hoping for a better tomorrow, for himself and his country.

Katlego Thwane

All For Grooming Future Leaders

Elizabeth Elango Bintliff, the CEO of Junior Achievement Africa, on why quality education should be available and accessible at scale and what needs to change to fill the gaps in teaching.



JA Africa’s mission is bridging the gap between classroom education and the world of work for young Africans, reaching 250,000 students in 15 countries in Africa each year. It’s CEO, Elizabeth Elango Bintliff, tells us more about building the workforce of the future:



You’ve been working in the youth empowerment sector for a long time. What do you see as the challenges?



I think three things are critical for young Africans to be empowered: education, experience and exposure. Access to the internet is ‘solving’ for exposure, though to a limited extent. But we need to solve for experience and education. Of the three, education is key and education tends to be the domain of the government. Elite private schools are great, but often cost-prohibitive for the average student. We need to make quality education available and accessible at scale.



Conversely, what are the opportunities?



The digital and online space are great opportunities for Africa. We are seeing this now in the time of Covid-19 more than ever. Yes, access to computers is a challenge, but even more challenging is access to data. There is no shortage of online resources that teach entrepreneurial mindsets to young people. I think what governments need to be working towards, more than even buying and putting computers in schools, is making offline access to these resources possible. If we make them affordable to access, the private sector would be more inclined to solve the hardware needs.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">&#8220;Classrooms are still configured for desks to face the teacher who is the sole holder of knowledge, whereas the world of work operates on round tables and collaborative thinking. Small changes like that matter.&#8221;</blockquote>



How do we give young people in Africa greater access to these opportunities?



We need to overhaul the way we are teaching. We need not only change how teachers are trained but what they are teaching students. In many countries, the curricula are antiquated. But the approach to teaching is even more so. Rote learning; providing information to children to memorize and regurgitate is still the dominant approach. It gives students little space to think for themselves. Classrooms are still configured for desks to face the teacher who is the sole holder of knowledge, whereas the world of work operates on round tables and collaborative thinking. Small changes like that matter.



What is the role of government and the private sector?



The role of government is central to success in changing education. Government has the ability to make change happen at scale. But African governments have to make these changes not just at policy level but also in implementation. We know that governments don’t have the resources to do so, but at least they can coordinate the efforts of the private sector. The private sector is going to have the greatest need for skilled labor, and there is increasing willingness to make these investments in education, but the effort is fragmented. It needs coordination.



Who are the other stakeholders and what can they contribute?



Non-profit organizations like ours are working hard to fill the gaps in education. But those gaps are big and growing and the scale is limited. NGOs can develop and test hypotheses about doing things in new ways. But governments have to adopt and scale them. JA Africa is currently undertaking a continent-wide youth employability survey, along with global consultancy firm Oliver Wyman, based out of Johannesburg. The findings of that survey will be invaluable to the private sector and policy-makers.



In education, parents are often the most critical stakeholders. Parents have to embrace new pedagogies, even if they are unfamiliar to them. Parents fear entrepreneurship because it is uncertain. But nothing is certain. Large multinational companies are laying off their staff because of Covid-19. So young entrepreneurs [should be equipped to] be better off in times of uncertainty. Africa becoming the largest workforce in the world is a huge opportunity if young Africans are skilled enough to take advantage of it.

E Bintliff

How Teaching Must Change To Prepare Youth In The Covid-19 Era

“Wealth, if you use it, comes to an end; learning, if you use it, increases.” Swahili Proverb



An enduring lesson learnt throughout our 175-year existence is that, while things rapidly change around us, the things that truly matter don’t! The desire to keep learning and growing is one such thing that remains a driving force behind everything we do at Old Mutual. Education is central to this.



Responding to the Challenges



Aligned to both Sustainable Development Goal’s 4 (Quality Education) and 17 (Partnerships) as well as our Responsible Business philosophy, we’re working to share, connect, learn and grow together with the communities we serve through Education.



We believe in the power of Education to solve key social issues such as poverty, inequality and unemployment. By continuing to invest in Education today, we know that we can build a more prosperous future for the generations of tomorrow.



Old Mutual has partnered with authorities, experts, and practitioners in the field on a number of ongoing initiatives including: &nbsp;



<ul><li>Dynamic and interactive Financial Education and Inclusion programmes that have reached millions across the African continent. Utilising an array of channels and leveraging off technology, the programmes impart valuable and often life changing principles that empower customers and communities to build and sustain their lifetime financial goals.</li><li>Investing in Schools, Teachers and Leadership to drive immediate and long-term impact in the Education sector. Old Mutual’ s Education Flagship Project – a longer-term programme with a seven-year investment cycle – is in place to connect the dots between learners, teachers and school leadership through innovative training that has paid off in improved results in affiliated schools.</li></ul>



<ul><li>Skills Development interventions such as Bursaries, Internships, Learnerships and Graduate Development programmes that seek to create sustainable job opportunities and placements for learners.</li></ul>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/175-Digital-Classroom-Advertorial-image-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-45337" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/175-Digital-Classroom-Advertorial-image-1.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/175-Digital-Classroom-Advertorial-image-1-300x169.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/175-Digital-Classroom-Advertorial-image-1-600x338.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/175-Digital-Classroom-Advertorial-image-1-768x432.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



Introducing Africa’s Biggest Digital Classroom to Bring It All Together!



In perhaps our most ambitious move yet, Old Mutual has committed to building Africa’s Biggest Digital classroom so that we can extend the Education-based work already being done across the Group to so many more.



This Digital Classroom is being designed to respond to the challenges of widespread education exclusion, low Financial Literacy rates on the continent, vastly uneven teacher-to-learner ratios, as well as accessibility to physical and financial resources that continue to hamper the success of the delivery of Education on the continent today, and into the future.&nbsp;



Enabling Learning Through Digital Engagement



But why a digital classroom?



Our aim as a business, is to be able to effectively respond to an increasingly connected Africa with user-friendly, value-adding solutions and experiences that bring as many people along on this educational journey as possible. Designed with a generation of digital first, tech-savvy users in mind, but mindful of the wealth of knowledge coming through from past generations, Africa’s Biggest Digital Classroom will enhance the capabilities of past and present, to shape a brighter future for all well into the future.



While we’re investing in digital capabilities to enhance education across the continent, we know that the future of Africa is still its people! And Africa’s Biggest Digital Classroom has people at its core. We believe that in creating opportunities for people to share and connect using digital technologies, we can contribute to greater inclusivity and a more prosperous continent for all.



How You Can Participate



Work is already underway to establish Africa’s Biggest Digital Classroom. We will be creating opportunities for our employees, customers, teachers, learners and many other stakeholders to add their voices to the design process. You can follow our progress and add your voice to the conversation on social media using #175Africa



We look forward to working with you to bring Africa’s Biggest Digital Classroom online!



Content provided by Old Mutual

175 Digital Classroom Advertorial image 2 with 175 years logo

Building Africa’s Biggest Digital Classroom

Most edtech startups are idealistic outfits with little revenue and low valuations, but Rachel Romer Carlson’s Guild Education is worth $1 billion and is on track to book $100 million in sales. Her secret? Connecting workers who have tuition benefits to colleges that will gladly pay to meet them.



It’s 9AM two days before Thanksgiving in Arkansas, and Walmart executives are dragging their suitcases around a windowless office building in search of a large conference room. They settle on an interior lunchroom with dull gray carpet, claiming one side of a long table in the corner and gesturing for their guests to sit opposite them. Ellie Bertani, Walmart’s director of workforce strategy, says she’s struggling to find qualified people to staff the company’s expanding network of 5,000 pharmacies and 3,400 vision centers. Her fellow Walmart execs are silent, but Rachel Romer Carlson, 31, cofounder and CEO of Guild Education, sees her opening. Without hesitation she says her team can work with Walmart and find a solution fast. “You guys and us,” she says, “let’s do it!”



Carlson flew to Bentonville from Guild’s Denver headquarters the day before. Dressed in a sensible navy blazer and black slacks, she hasn’t bothered with makeup. Since 7:30 that morning she’s been huddling with teams of Walmart brass, going over options to train workers for those new jobs. They range from a one-year pharmacy technician certificate program offered by a for-profit online outfit called Penn Foster to an online bachelor’s degree in healthcare administration at nonprofit Southern New Hampshire University.



Carlson’s groundbreaking idea when she launched Guild four years ago: help companies offer education benefits that employees will actually use. Many big employers will pay for their workers to go to school (it’s a tax break), but hardly any workers take advantage of the opportunity. Applying and signing up for courses can be cumbersome, and in most instances employees have to front the tuition and wait to be reimbursed. Meanwhile, many colleges are desperate for students because they have small—or nonexistent—endowments and are financially dependent on tuition. Many nonselective online programs spend more than $3,000 to attract each new student. Carlson charges schools a finder’s fee (she won’t say how much) for the students she delivers from her corporate partners.



So far Guild has signed up more than 20 companies, including Disney and Taco Bell. Guild gets paid only if students complete their coursework, so a full 150 of the company’s 415 staffers serve as coaches who help employees apply to degree programs and plan how to balance their studies with work and family. When a company like Walmart requests a customized training course, Guild solicits proposals from as many as 100 education providers (nearly all of them online) and recommends the programs it deems best. It also negotiates tuition discounts and facilitates direct payments between employers and schools, a big plus for workers who would otherwise have to wait months to be reimbursed.



Carlson, an alumna of the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 list and a judge on the 2020 list, says she has already channeled $100 million in tuition benefits to workers. She expects 2019 revenue to top $50 million, and Guild investor Byron Deeter of Bessemer Venture Partners predicts 2020 revenue of more than $100 million. In mid-November Carlson closed her fifth round of financing, led by General Catalyst, bringing her total money raised to $228 million at a $1 billion valuation. In the sleepy, well-intentioned world of edtech, Guild is one of only a few startups whose values have soared, says Daniel Pianko, a New York-based edtech investor with no stake in the company. “I can see a path for Guild to be a $100 billion company,” says Paul Freedman, CEO of San Francisco venture firm Entangled Group, who has known Carlson since she was in business school and was one of Guild’s earliest investors.



When asked to detail Guild’s inner workings, like its strategy for soliciting custom courses, Carlson eschews specifics and delivers what sounds like a political stump speech: “The economy’s moving so fast,” she says. “We can’t let higher education dictate the skills and competencies that we need five to ten years from now.”



&nbsp;There’s a reason she talks this way. Her grandfather Roy Romer was a three-term (1987–1999) Democratic governor of Colorado before spending six years as superintendent of Los Angeles’ public schools. Carlson started riding along on his campaign bus when she was 6 years old; occasionally she would even speak at his rallies. When her father, Chris Romer, a former Colorado state senator, ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Denver in 2011, she served as his finance director. (“The loss was devastating,” she says.)



Along with politics, the Romers were committed to increasing access to education, especially for working adults. Roy Romer helped start Salt Lake City-based Western Governors University, a pioneer in online adult education. In the wake of Chris Romer’s mayoral bid, in 2011, he cofounded American Honors, a for profit company that offered honors courses at community colleges (the company struggled, and the brand is now owned by Wellspring International, a student recruitment firm).



After graduating from Stanford undergrad and working briefly in the Obama White House, Carlson launched her first venture, Student Blueprint, while getting her M.B.A. (also at Stanford) in 2014. Student Blueprint sought to use technology to match community college students with jobs. It was a noble idea, but she decided to finish school and sold the software she had developed to Paul Freedman’s Entangled Group in 2014 for a negligible sum. In 2015, after she wrapped up her M.B.A., she pitched the idea for Guild to one of her professors, Michael Dearing, and to seed investor Aileen Lee, of Cowboy Ventures, raising $2 million.



After relocating to her home turf in Denver, she landed her first major corporate partner the summer of 2016 when she sent a LinkedIn message to a Chipotle benefits manager that played up the fast-food chain’s “strong Denver roots and social mission.” With help from Guild, Chipotle’s $12-an-hour burrito rollers are now pursuing bachelor’s degrees from Bellevue University in Nebraska or taking computer security courses at Wilmington University in Delaware. In October 2019, Carlson persuaded Chipotle to lift its cap on tuition benefits above the $5,250 the IRS allows companies to write off.



Guild’s biggest competitor is a division of Watertown, Massachusetts-based publicly traded daycare provider Bright Horizons, which has offered tuition benefit services since 2009. It works with 210 companies including Home Depot and Goldman Sachs. Under Bright Horizons’ system, the companies—not the colleges—pay. Much of the genius of Guild’s business model is that it correctly aligns incentives: The colleges are the most financially motivated party, so they foot the bill. Another competitor, Los Angeles-based In Stride, launched in 2019 with funding from Arizona State University, and like Bright Horizons it charges the corporations.



“I see our competition as the status quo,” Carlson says. “Classically, employers have offered tuition-reimbursement programs, but no one is using those programs.”



The nonprofit Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation has done five case studies showing returns on investment as high as 140% for companies that offer tuition reimbursement programs. “We saw powerful impacts on retention,” says Lumina’s strategy director, Haley Glover.



&nbsp;“Walmart and Amazon are in a death struggle,” proclaims Joseph Fuller, a professor at Harvard Business School. “If a Walmart worker can say, ‘I got an education that allowed me to get promoted,’ they’re going to be someone who speaks generously about Walmart and they are more likely be a Walmart shopper.”



Like a good politician, Carlson is working to please everyone. “We found a win-win,” she says, “where we can help companies align their objectives with helping their employees achieve their goals.”



–&nbsp;Alexandra Wilson and Susan Adams

FO123119_073-1024×862

Make The Colleges Pay: How This Entrepreneur Helps Companies Offer Education Benefits That Employees Will Actually Use

The&nbsp;<a href="http://s.mo.ibrahim.foundation/u/2018/10/28235917/2018-IIAG-Press-Release.pdf">Ibrahim Index of </a><a href="http://s.mo.ibrahim.foundation/u/2018/10/28235917/2018-IIAG-Press-Release.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="African (opens in a new tab)">African </a><a href="http://s.mo.ibrahim.foundation/u/2018/10/28235917/2018-IIAG-Press-Release.pdf">Governance</a>&nbsp;measures and monitors Africa’s governance performance. It produces an impartial picture of governance performance in every country on the continent. David E Kiwuwa, associate professor of international studies at the University of Nottingham, asked&nbsp;Mandipa Ndlovu, a Zimbabwean academic, researcher and 2017/18 Ibrahim Scholar to unpack some of the findings from the 2018 report.



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



Where do you see progress in Africa in terms of good governance and leadership over the past decade?



The Index defines governance as the provision of the political, social and economic goods and services that every citizen has the right to expect from their government. Governments have a responsibility to deliver these services to their citizens.



The 2018 Index shows that countries that have done well in overall governance have also seen improvements in transparency and accountability. These improvements fall under the broad category of “safety and rule of law”. Here, the continent is in a better position than it was five years ago. For this trend to continue national security needs to be reinforced.



The health measure has improved in 47 countries over the past ten years. Countries like Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burkina Faso have taken great strides. This is thanks to improvements in several areas like the provision of antiretroviral treatment, a drop in child mortality and better management of communicable diseases. Maternal mortality rates have also stabilised and immunisation has become more common.



In spite of this progress, Africans are not satisfied with their governments’ handling of basic health services.



Where is progress slowest?



Gender is one area of concern. The 2018 report notes that gender representation in leadership had the largest improvement over the last five years. However, the empowerment of women in general registered the biggest slowdown. Gender representation therefore, must not be conflated with gender empowerment.



The data also shows that policies and representation do not always translate into action. South Africa, for example, continues to face high rates of femicide and patriarchal ideals within its judicial structures. This is despite its liberal constitution.



While the country shows great improvements under “women’s political participation” and “representation of women in the judiciary” there is a decline in “women’s political empowerment”. Women are well represented in the country’s cabinet, for instance, but there’s been a marked deterioration in how empowered ordinary women feel to participate in politics.



Such disconnects are concerning.



However, countries like Rwanda must be commended for their deliberate inclusion of women in places of influence. Interventions like these are still too rare on the continent.



Also worrying is the lack of progress under “sustainable economic opportunity”, the worst performing measure. Almost half of the continent’s citizens (43.2%) live in a country that’s seen a decline of sustainable economic opportunities in the last 10 years.



Why have African governments struggled to translate economic growth into improved sustainable economic opportunities for their citizens?



Trends indicate that transparency and accountability are vital for sustainable economic opportunity in the long term. Greater accountability and transparency is needed on national expenditure, for example. Protectionist systems that allow for the abuse of power and inhibit the levelling out of socio-economic disparities must be exposed. Only then can these systems be reformed to open up more opportunities for all.



Increasing access to sustainable economic opportunities improves human development. This in turn allows for innovation in health, technology and other spaces that increase the overall functionality of good governance.



What role can education play in improving governance?



The gaps in African governance are twofold: socio-economic inclusion and education. It is important to focus on both areas to bring about overall improvement. Although improvements have been recorded in the sub-category of “participation” in the last 10 years, student and youth resistance movements belie the progress.



The rise of populist movements coupled with the lack of voter registration within the youth dividend must not be misconstrued as political apathy.



In South Africa for example – where the 2018 index was launched – there is a critical skills gap that has not been adequately addressed. The quality of education in South Africa is worrying.



Also in South Africa, as well as the rest of the continent, youth enrolment in schools is improving. But “education quality”, “satisfaction with education provision”, and “alignment of education with market needs” are persistent causes for concern.



Education has a great bearing on sustainable economic opportunities because skilled workers feed the market. Africa is currently experiencing a skills gap deficit. With 27 countries registering deteriorating education scores in the last five years there is a further decline to already fragile sustainable economic opportunities. &#8211; The Conversation



 -David E Kiwuwa: Associate Professor of International Studies, University of Nottingham



-The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. They do not reflect the opinions or views of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation.



<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108182/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important">

SAFRICA-EDUCATION-REFUGEE-MIGRANTS-CONFLICTS-DEMOGRAPHICS

Education Quality and the Youth Skills Gap Are Marring Progress in Africa

Naledi-403

The Future In Her Hands

From the deserts of Rajasthan to the dunes of Dubai and the corporate dens of Africa, Rakesh Wahi has weathered the vagaries of life and business. When only 23, while serving in the Indian Armed Forces, he was electrofied and almost died. That early experience taught him to chase his dreams – and fulfil them, no matter what.
Wahi, founder of the Johannesburg-based ABN Group, including CNBC Africa and FORBES AFRICA, has been a leader in media, IT, telecoms and education. Also based in Dubai as Chairman of CMA Investment Holdings, prior to moving there, Wahi had served in the Indian army for about nine years, and for distinguished services to the country in peacetime, was awarded the Vishisht Seva Medal by the President of India in 1985.
Wahi has built companies in over 22 countries, employing a little over a 1,000 people. “Extremely passionate about education”, it is his vision to set up educational centers of excellence across Africa. His first university was launched in Ghana in 2013. He is also the co-founder of Murdoch University Dubai.
Here, Wahi talks about education, innovation, and his debut book, Be A Lion, which will be unveiled at the finale of the 2016 CNBC Africa All Africa Business Leaders Awards in Johannesburg on November 11.
&nbsp;
<h4>What is Be A Lion about?</h4>
It’s about people and the impact they have had on me. I think this entire journey I have made is about how people have influenced me. First, on your way up, it’s your parents who are your greatest influencers as that’s where you get your identity from; and then, over a period of your lifetime, it’s the people who come into your life and make an impact, some positively, some otherwise. And that is the greatest experience you can talk about.
&nbsp;
<h4>You own multiple businesses; what new innovative industries are you possibly looking at?</h4>
When it comes to innovation, the key is to focus on how the world is changing and how things are going to impact our existing businesses. You have to constantly think about how your consumers are reacting to your products and services, and constantly change and that’s what innovation is about; it’s about reaching your customers in a more efficient manner.
With regard to the education sector, it’s changing rapidly. The way children consume education is very different from our time. The traditional classroom environment is changing.
Now, is learning going to be classroom-based? Are holograms going to be the future of education? Can you superimpose a teacher sitting in New York into classrooms in core campuses across the world, and have concurrent teaching?  A lot is changing.
Online is a very important aspect of where education is going, but I don’t believe that is the answer to it; I think the hybrid kind of education is what is eventually going to come around. Face-time with teachers is critical, the social engagement with peers is critical, so therefore a lot of things are going to remain constant with education, and the rest of it will evolve in terms of where technology and innovation can be used to make it more efficient.
&nbsp;
<h4>What are your continuing goals for education in Africa?</h4>
We are setting up centers of excellence. In West Africa, with Lancaster University, we are going to be setting up an engineering college with strong laboratory-based learning. In East Africa, our focus is energy and a vast part of it will require simulators and modern training equipment, and we will be partnering with industry to make sure we get the best of breed. We will roll out energy programs in the rest of Africa, and encourage students from across Africa, Asia and emerging markets to come to Rwanda for instance, where we are partnering with the University of Aberdeen for our energy programs.
In southern Africa, we are looking to partner with one of the Scottish universities to set up a center of excellence for health sciences, including medical and nursing colleges.
We don’t want to bring in technology from the yesteryears just because it is cheaper, or because we think Africa is still an emerging market, we want to actually leapfrog and bring in the latest technical innovations into these centers.
&nbsp;
<h4>CNBC Africa turns 10 next year; what are the innovations in the media business?</h4>
The entire way in which people are going to view television is changing, so are distribution channels. What remains consistent is there will always be demand for high-quality content. Our focus on creating quality content, which stays with the values of CNBC globally, is going to be one of our core competencies, but how you distribute it is going to actually evolve in the next 10 to 15 years, particularly in Africa.
The viewing habits of consumers are changing, they are no longer watching channels; they are watching programs, and able to customize their own grids. What is relevant is you will be able to watch what you want, at the time you want, in a scheduled manner.
On the one side, we have to make sure we create best and compelling content; on the other side, we partner with distribution platforms able to cater to the needs of the consumers at an affordable price.
&nbsp;
<h4>How welcoming is the African economy today of innovation?</h4>
At conferences and workshops, people talk about innovation, but I am not very sure they are actually geared up for it. The practical elements of bringing innovation into your workplace, whether in government or large corporates, is about a change in mindset, when you have to change processes and the way you look at things. It’s about driving change, and also, the commitment of leadership.
You do find there are some leaders in Africa bringing about that change, and the one that I would single out is President Paul Kagame, which is why Rwanda is making strides the way they are. He has the ability to visualize the future. They also have restrictions in terms of the size of the economy, but when you are hungry, you are able to adapt faster.
Kagame has brought a culture of change in his country, and it is very visible in the way you do business in Rwanda. You can set up a company in six to 24 hours if you have your documents in order. Rwanda gives you the opportunity to adapt quickly.
&nbsp;
<h4>How do you balance profit and philanthropy?</h4>
I think these are closely related. There have been great leaders like Mother Teresa who have devoted their time towards a cause. And she has touched the lives of our family too – she was very close to my mother, and has been to our home. But eventually, even to enable what she was doing, required money.
Over time, our own CSR and philanthropy as a family has changed. When Saloni [Wahi’s wife] and I were starting out in our life, even when we didn’t have much, we were always engaged in making a contribution towards causes.
Over the years, we found we needed to have a cause of our own, and after we set up the ABN Education Trust, we rationalized what made sense to us as a family. We focused on financial journalism, and also, on helping destitute women and the girl child, a cause Saloni is very passionate about.
Money is an important contribution but you also need to make time. Saloni and I work as a team. The heart sits with her, while I become the machinery for generating the income.
&nbsp;
<h4>Your most prized possession is…?</h4>
Family. I am not a material person. If I were to pack my life, I could pack it all into one suitcase.
&nbsp;
– Interviewed by Methil Renuka; for the full text of this interview, visit www.cnbcafrica.com; All net proceeds from the sales of Be A Lion, published by Penguin Random House, will go to charity and  the ABN Education Trust.

The Entrepreneur’s Entrepreneur

In 1966, if you drove through Gaborone and blinked you would have missed it. It was little more than a barren railway stop, in the middle of nowhere, on the way from Cape Town to Cairo. Those living here would have said there was nothing more to it than termite mounds and elephants.
At the time, this land-locked country was considered to be the poorest in Africa, with a per capita of $70. It had nine secondary schools, 50 university graduates, a railway line built by Cecil John Rhodes, and five kilometers of tarred road that stretched between Lobatse Station and the High Court.
From this backwater beginning Botswana has emerged as one of the fastest growing economies in the world and moved into the ranks of upper-middle income countries. Real GDP shows an average growth of 5% per annum over the past decade, at a time when the most advanced economies have been falling apart. In 2015, GDP stood at $14.39 billion. This remarkable growth, according to the World Bank, is because of diamonds hidden deep in Orapa, 521 kilometers north of Gaborone. The discovery was made in 1967, months after Botswana’s independence was declared on September 30, 1966, and the proceeds went to the state rather than colonial coffers.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5201" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Botswana_JC-1-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
But, if you look closely at the white walls and fresh cement of Gaborone, cracks appear. In the week FORBES AFRICA arrived in Gaborone, unemployed youth clashed with police outside Parliament; four of them spent the night in jail.
It is called #UnemploymentMovement and uses social media to fuel support, much like South Africa’s #FeesMustFall student protests a year ago. It comes at a time when citizens question the government’s P100 million ($9.76 million) budget for its golden jubilee.
It is a big problem. One third of Botswana’s two million people are youth. The World Bank says poverty in Botswana is 17.8%, among youth aged between 15 and 24 its 34.10%. This is despite government spending 9% of its $14.39 billion GDP on free education.
One of those that spent the night in jail is Jones Banda, a committee leader behind #UnemploymentMovement. Speaking to FORBES AFRICA while on a march on August 13, he says the movement started with just one student, Tlamelo Tsurupe, standing outside Parliament with a poster. Within a week dozens more, including Banda, joined him.
“The youth of Botswana have realized our government can no longer place jobs for the youth&#8230; Most of our emphasis now is on the graduates. Why? Because it is [graduates] that are very frustrated. They have been educated by the government to take control of the economy and now the government is not absorbing them. Mind you, the students have loans to pay,” says Banda.
At the time of going to print, the BDP had not released an official statement concerning police assault at the protest on August 8. A permit was granted for the march held on August 13.
Banda believes unemployed youth make up more than 17.8%. This is because unemployed graduates have to register with the government, meaning that thousands of other students who are not graduates are not considered.
Banda’s stint behind bars hardened his resolve.
“Being in jail is almost as if I was home, not that I have ever been in jail. But for the movement it was a good thing. We felt the brunt of system and so we know now who is on our side. It was what we expected,” says Banda.
While students called for better employment, there are others who have managed to eke out a living.
A 32-year-old electrical engineering graduate, Kagiso Monkgatusi, makes his living from flying a P45,000 ($4,400) drone, one of the few owned and licensed in the country.
Monkgatusi, a photographer by trade, got the idea for his business after seeing footage on the internet. It led to him starting his small business, Africa Killer Bee Media, named because of the sound the drone makes in flight. The drone was given to him as a grant by the government-run Local Enterprise Authority. Monkgatusi’s success is an indication of Botswana’s potential.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5203" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Botswana_unemploymentmovement_JC-8-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
In Gaborone, there are small signs of burgeoning wealth; tarred roads glisten, as bright as the country’s diamonds, next to dusty sidewalks; malls, polished and pristine, are packed to the rafters with food, shoes and cell phone stores. The city center is a hive of activity as scaffolding rises on the skyline.
Botswana’s success is largely due to a stable government with strong fiscal management, reports the World Bank. President Ian Khama, whose photo hangs on the wall of every store you visit, has held office since 2008. He is the head of the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) that has been in power since the first elections in 1965. Every president has been democratically elected and all stood down after their two-term limit.
At the very least, Botswana is trying hard to improve investment and growth in their small economy.
For the hungry investor, Special Economic Zones (SEZ) have been built in Lobatse, Gaborone, Palapye, Selibe Phikwe, Tuli Block, Francistown and Pandamatenga.
“In April, P1.6 billion, of P3.5 billion over three years, in tenders have been awarded and the focus is mainly on the construction of roads, health and education facilities. Other sectors that have been allocated package proceeds are manufacturing, tourism and agriculture,” says Moatlhodi Sebabole, Research Manager at First National Bank Botswana.
Sebabole says Botswana also has a five-year national development plan (NDP) which will focus on coal mining, base metals and diamonds. However, according to Sebabole, investors need to keep a careful eye on low agriculture and food security, stability of water and electricity, and low investment growth.
“The production side of the economy still remains under turbulence with the closure of some abattoirs as well as base metal mines like African Copper,” says Sebabole.
Regardless, Sebabole believes Botswana’s outlook over the next 10 years is promising. Focus will remain on infrastructure projects in water, rail and electricity, which will need financing of P100 billion (around $10 billion) by 2019.
Botswana is a far cry from the country that started with $70 per person a year and five kilometers of tarred road. Fifty years on, it faces new challenges that show how far the country has come – some might even go as far as calling it first world problems, including an educated and militant youth.

Young,  Jobless And ANGRY

Athletes do not have a choice about being role models. The only choice we have is whether we are going to be good role models or bad ones.” This was part of a speech by British basketball player John Amaechi at the Peace and Sport conference in Monaco in 2011.
Listening to Amaechi speak about the good a role model can do, I kept thinking back to Tiger Woods’ extramarital affairs. According to FORBES, Woods was the first athlete to make over $1 billion back in 2009. Since then, we have had the Lance Armstrong doping saga and the Oscar Pistorius Valentine’s Day shooting. These are top earning athletes who have inspired people and given back to society. However, they lacked integrity. Integrity gives longevity to success and fame.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3432" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Kirsty_Cov_ForbesAF-27-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />
I never had a sporting role model when I was growing up because most of our stars were playing internationally and were never available. I didn’t have that person I could reach out to that would tell me just how tough my life was going to be yet motivating me to go for it anyway. Being a good role model is about having solid moral principles that guide behavior on and off the field. Role models make themselves available to spend time with people, to share their stories of success and overcoming challenges. They share their secrets in the hope of molding greater athletes and greater people. One person I look up to is Strive Masiyiwa, the Founder and Chairman of Econet Wireless. He may not be an athlete but he shows the responsibility that comes with success and this is guided by his ethics. Education for everyone is his aspiration.
Sport used to be everything to me. Now that I’m older and will soon be retiring from competition, I realize how significant education is. Sport must never take the place of education – it must assist with it. I was always an average student at high school but when I got to university I started applying the lesson I learned from training in my education. The sacrifices I had to make, believing that I could do it and my perseverance started paying off. The year I won my first Olympic gold was the same year I graduated as an ‘A’ student. Understanding what is important and highlighting your priorities is essential in conveying your message to others.
Motivational speaking is a love I found through sport because I’ve seen how it lifts people’s spirits and gives them the attitude they need to go forward. A priority of mine is speaking to children, to help motivate and guide them. I am often introduced as one of Africa’s greatest Olympians and am expected to tell you that it is okay if you are not great at school work because you can always become a sports star. I throw protocol out the window and very politely let the children know that this is wrong. Four months before my fourth Olympic Games in London 2012, I dislocated my patella and then two months later contracted pneumonia. This was a wake-up call for me and I suddenly thought that I might not make the Olympics. It was one of the most physically challenging times in my career but it made me grateful for the education I received. I had a contingency plan if the injury prevented me from ever playing sport again.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3431" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_1481-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
Whoever we are, someone is always watching our behavior: a parent, a son or daughter, a brother or sister, a friend or even a person you have never met. Michael Phelps, the greatest Olympic athlete and a fellow swimmer, has recently been caught drinking and driving. This has nothing to do with swimming but because of his responsibility as a role model, he has been pulled off the United States swimming team for six months. This will take the spotlight off him until he can figure out what is important. It will also allow those who look up to him to realize there are consequences for your actions, no matter who you are.
We are all role models to someone. If we can maintain our integrity and become successful, we will not only be able to sustain ourselves but more importantly continue helping others.

What To Do When The Dream Breaks Down

Agriculture has become an increasingly crucial issue for African governments. Poor infrastructure and lack of long-term finance have been fingered as the culprits blocking Africa’s path to food security.
Africa’s last decade belonged to telecommunications. To achieve meaningful development, the next decade must witness massive investment and progress in the education, healthcare, electricity, water, road, rail and air transport sectors. This means economic diversification, urban decongestion and its economic gains, namely, rural development, inclusive growth, innovation, heightened productivity and spiraling employment.
Solid infrastructure will boost knowledge and agro-produce exchange between African nations.
Beyond infrastructure development and food security concerns, expanding food production will also have a positive impact on local and regional labor markets, as more people are absorbed into the agribusiness value chain.
Small scale farms produce 80% of the food consumed across Africa. Consequently, the agribusiness value chain is a short one, delivering little value to national economies. According to the African Export-Import Bank, Africa’s global share of food processing is less than 20%.
The paucity of processing, trading and retail mechanisms has restricted Africa’s agribusiness sector to the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid. The current practice of just cultivating-to-sell restricts the value chain to a primary commodity-level activity. Service providers involved in input supplies (seeds, fertilizers, machinery), packaging, exporting, transportation, processing, and converting basic produce into finished goods are urgently needed to extend the value chain. De-risking the sector might also require the establishment of public and private-sector initiatives which enable farms and agro-allied concerns to access bio- and agro-technology, financial credit and risk assurance.
According to the World Bank, Africa’s agriculture sector could be worth $1 trillion by 2030 if infrastructure and financing challenges are overcome.
Slightly over 60% of all the uncultivated arable land in the world is in Africa. In Nigeria, only 40% of its 84 million hectares of arable land is cultivated. These productivity gaps can become Africa’s competitive edge.
Coming out of the 23rd AU Summit of Heads of State and Government in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, last July, African leaders adopted the Malabo Declaration, reinforcing a decade-old commitment (the 2003 Maputo Declaration) to end hunger and cut poverty in half by 2025.
To meet this lofty goal, the leaders reaffirmed their resolve to devote at least 10% of their national budgets to agricultural development. Only 10 countries have so far met this target. The Malabo Declaration raises the bar of focus and commitment to smallholder farmers and rural communities across the continent, says One.org, a campaigning and advocacy group which helped to galvanize pan-African and global support for the pact.
Africa’s leaders however stopped short of agreeing on a common formula for measuring the 10% target. Whichever way one looks at this matter, the key point is that the local and international appetite for Africa’s agribusiness sector has picked up.
Embedded in the declaration are a set of risk management and strategic corporate social objectives namely, operationalization of the African Investment Bank; increased support for intra-regional trade; adoption of climate-resilient farming strategies; responsible private sector investment; youth inclusion and employment targets; and mutual accountability for results.
Hopefully, Africa’s next decade will be fruitful. Ethiopia, South Africa and Kenya seem well adjusted to the nuances of commercial and small-scale farming, producing and exporting excellent quality coffee, wine, citrus, vegetables, tea and flowers.
In Nigeria, an     Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) has transformed a once comatose sector into an engine of growth. Food imports declined from $19 billion in 2011 to $4.35 billion in 2013; bank lending to the sector as a share of total loans has also risen from 0.7% to 6% within two years. Over $4 billion private sector investment commitments has also been attracted to Nigerian agriculture over the last three years.
Earlier this year, Aliko Dangote, president of Dangote Industries, reached out to Kenya for agro-expertise. The Kenyans initially hesitated, pointing at Boko Haram and Ebola as the reasons why they feared coming to West Africa. But when they were offered a remuneration package that was too sweet to refuse, they accepted the challenge. They are now supporting Dangote’s sugarcane fields in Nigeria.
Money talks and agriculture is a multi-billion dollar business.

YOU CAN GROW MONEY  AFTER ALL

The economic and political transformation of a country directly correlates with the education level of its demographics. With national priorities like health care, infrastructure, housing etc, it’s impossible for countries to manage supporting the entire value chain of education, from primary to secondary to vocational and tertiary. Add infrastructure and skills-development to the need for integrated research-based learning synonymous with quality education and what you have is a glaring resource gap.
This dilemma is consistent across most countries in the world, particularly those with low GDP per capita. Rather than concerted efforts, governments have spread themselves thin trying to do everything with limited resources. This has unfortunately resulted in mismanagement, no accountability, corruption and disillusionment. The intangible destruction of long-term wealth creation is in excess of the annual financial allocation as there is a widening gap between skills needed and the output from the efforts.
A growing question therefore is: where does a government allocate its resources and how does it integrate private sector investments? The answer is complex and not a one-size-fits-all solution.
During my travels in Africa over the last ten years, I have interacted with heads of state, ministers of education, regulators, and educational faculty. The maze of bureaucracy, legislation and processes created using historic models of education is shocking. It’s small wonder no one is willing to grab the bull by its horns and bring changes to help Africa leapfrog into the future rather than dwell in the past.
I will reflect on the tertiary sector. Looking at Africa, South Africa excluded, one sees a lack of good quality universities. It’s no surprise to see some 400,000 students going abroad for post-secondary programs annually, with nearly 300,000 originating from sub-Saharan Africa. With continuing growth of populations, economic output, and school and post-secondary enrolment rates, it’s expected one in five outbound mobile students will originate from Africa within the next 20 years.
It’s evident the business models of universities globally factor international students as a revenue source. These students pay higher fees. The irony is poor African countries are in many ways subsidizing the education of students of developed countries. The most unfortunate impact of this dichotomy is less than half the students return to the continent to add any value to the country that not only paid for their education but also subsidized their peers and for their pains, suffer a
brain drain.
Let’s put this in the context of the future. United Nations’ world population projections see it increasing to 9.6 billion by 2050, up by 2.4 billion from the current population. More than 50% of this growth will come from Africa (source: The Size of it, The Economist; June 18, 2013). Africa’s population will increase from about 10% of the world’s population to over 20% by 2050. It will undoubtedly have the youngest population on the planet and if transformation in the education sector is not made on a war-footing, the outcome is going to be catastrophic.
To cater to the population and given the overflow in current institutions, there is need to establish between 450 to 500 colleges and universities in Africa over the next 10 years. This growth needs investments in billions of dollars that governments clearly do not have. Firstly, legislation needs to be amended for foreign universities to establish on the continent. This is just one step to build capacity.
There are multifold advantages of bringing quality education brands to the continent. Firstly, these institutions are highly-ranked and bring with them best practices, systems, faculty, research capacity and world-class curriculum. The model should entail that the quality of academic delivery and entry requirements on the African campus should be the same as the home campus. It should allow students to transfer freely between various campuses for a global experience. The accreditations of these institutions should be based on degrees being offered by the home campus.
Secondly, there will be a slowdown of students going abroad focused mainly towards specialized training and not routine undergraduate or post-graduate courses. This will help retain skills in the region and conserve the foreign exchange drain. Thirdly, over time, the African branches of foreign universities will attract global students. Given the lower costs, excellent weather and natural beauty of Africa, there is no reason why education cannot become part of the continent’s export ecosystem. This will become increasingly important as universities in developed countries find it difficult to invest in new facilities owing to costs.
Another step governments must institute immediately is an offset program. All large defence, infrastructure, energy, mining and other contracts given to international or local companies should require a contribution towards setting up an international university in the country either through direct investment or through a centralized education fund. Similarly, all students sent to foreign universities through state funding must require the beneficiary university to offer some of their programs.
The other vital need is innovation. Education is no longer going to be about land and building. Consumption patterns of education are changing and with technology and broadband infrastructure development will emerge the opportunity for African states to bring about the latest delivery platforms. Changes from innovations are already being implemented by well-established universities in developed countries. Partnerships with them will help shorten the learning curve.
These illustrations demonstrate the need for the education ecosystem in Africa to be catalyzed. This can only happen through proactive steps for dynamic reforms from our leaders.
&nbsp;
&#8211; Rakesh Wahi is Vice-Chairman and
Co-founder of ABN Group.

Tag: Education

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA