An opinion essay by Lere Baale, CEO of Business School Netherlands International – Nigeria, casts African independence as an ongoing test of whether people’s lives improve, alongside documented gaps in learning and school access.
Published by BusinessDay on Nov. 2, the essay centers on education, accountable leadership and shared prosperity. Baale wrote, “Only the sustained improvement of people’s lives can demonstrate how well that sovereignty is being used.” The piece acknowledges colonial exploitation and external disadvantages while also urging scrutiny of choices by governments, businesses and communities.
Martin Gustafsson’s 2025 analysis combines findings from nine assessment programs into harmonized country estimates. Those estimates cover 47 of Africa’s 55 countries, representing 97% of the continent’s children; source years vary by country. Among enrolled learners, 13.4% reached the end-of-primary minimum on an average measure across reading and mathematics. With an out-of-school adjustment that assumes children outside school do not meet the benchmark, the estimated share falls to 10.8%. That adjustment covers 46 countries, with Seychelles absent from the dataset.
The two figures describe different aspects of education: Gustafsson’s analysis estimates proficiency at the end of primary school, while the 2025 Africa SDG 4 Scorecard counts people who are out of school. The scorecard reports 118 million children, adolescents and youth out of school in Africa as of 2023. It says 74% of African countries had set national benchmarks for at least one education indicator.
The African Union’s Agenda 2063 links inclusive growth with education and skills, capable institutions and accountable governance. A World Bank report on Sub-Saharan Africa identifies unequal access to jobs, finance and public services, along with market and institutional distortions, as factors that can advantage some groups and disadvantage others. It says poor young people can be left in low-paying, insecure informal work.
The scorecard gives a collective target for countries to reduce the out-of-school population by 58 million by 2030.
