A Brief Perspective of the Sustainable Development Goals

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WRITTEN BY: Asanya Boluwatife Ndidi The unanimous agreement of the 193 member states of the United Nations General Assembly to the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development in 2015 produced one of the most ambitious and inclusive global aspirations in history. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. Targeted at committing members states to ensure greater inclusivity, end poverty and push the world to a more sustainable path. The SDGs are broad and interdependent thus begetting the question as to how well these broad global aspirations are likely to result in implementable developments especially in developing countries. The inclusion of so many goals without a hierarchy of priority and without reference to inherent contradictions that are likely to result in conflict between the goals may have unintended negative consequences which may inhibit the timely/e
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The present state of education in Africa and evaluation of what the future holds for Africans.

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The present state of education in Africa and evaluation of what the future holds for Africans.

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” -W.B Yeats

Education opens one to light- to a greater and deeper understanding about things that surround a man. Through education, one's dream can be achieved. Consequently, education seems not to be fully active in Africa.

Africa is one of the continents with the youngest population and if only education is fully utilized well, will be among the continents with the largest capable human capital available. 

Education came into existence in Africa through missionaries and seems to have started from Egypt, where it spread to all parts of Africa. Egyptians could do so many things as a result of the knowledge they gained from being educated (such as gathering and storing information on papyrus). 

It is a sad thing to note that up till today, Africa remains one of the countries with the least educated citizens. Though the number of educated children increased after the colonization in many countries, there is still an increase in the number of uneducated children because of a constant increase in population. Currently, according to the African Union(2021), 40% of children in West Africa are not in school. Not only is this the issue, 58% of primary school children can't read effectively. Next is Eastern Africa with 34%, Central Africa-13%, Southern Africa-10% and Northern Africa-3%.

From the data shown above, Western Africa is the worst among all the regions in Africa because ⅖ of the out-of-school children are there. 
This is as a result of so many set backs and obstacles such as large number of students been taught by few teachers, lack of adequate facilities for quality education, lack of incentives and low salaries to teachers, poverty. 
Lack of legal implementation is also a reason; In a situation where it has been stated that there should be primary education made available to all children with no legal enforcement made (A decree that will make children stay in school no matter what their reason for staying out of school may be), the children will stay out of school. 

Another vital reason is conflict and insecurity- A country where there is insecurity to the extent that it puts the life of the children at stake will always discourage parents to send their children to school . Example is Nigeria(Western Africa), where Boko haram kidnapped children(Chibok girls) in schools. Any parent around such area where the insecurity is high will not think of putting the life of his or her child at stake and this will make such a child to stay back instead of being in school. 

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLDS FOR AFRICANS?

As it stands now, Africa remains one of the continents with the poorest economic growth. Africa have been blessed with many resources starting from solid minerals down to Agricultural resources. We have all that we need to become a great continent but human capital is unavailable. Unskilled and semi skilled labour are dominant in Africa. Because of this, we export our resources raw when we could process them and sell them at higher prices, we lose our able citizens (few citizens with quality skills) all because there are no job opportunities available for them. 

If this continues and no effort is made to improve the educational system in Africa, a time will come when there will be little or no labour forces available and when there will be a hyper-increase in population due to lack of education. In order to avoid this, African leaders should work together and help out in solving the problems we face today so as to secure and strengthen the educational system of Africa. 


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