Africa’s Education Imperative

V Shankar, Group Executive Director and CEO for Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas at Standard Chartered Bank, recently wrote about Africa’s education imperative in Project Syndicate.  Click here to read the full article.  An excerpt is below:

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called education the “single best investment” that countries can make to build “prosperous, healthy, and equitable societies.” Nowhere is this insight more relevant than in Africa, where large-scale investment in education has enabled significant gains in literacy, school attendance, and university enrollment in recent years. But the continent still has a long way to go.
 
. . . Over the next few decades, Africa is expected to record the fastest growth in the number of wealthy individuals. And two recent studies commissioned by Standard Chartered Bank indicate that the growing ranks of the affluent view education as a top priority.
 
. . . By 2040, Africa will have 1.1 billion working-age citizens – more than either India or China. With the right education, skills, and job opportunities, this immense workforce could deliver rapid and sustainable economic growth for the entire region. Without them, the continent is more likely to experience rising unemployment, widening inequality, social disorder, and, ultimately, conflict and chaos.

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