Africa's Education

When researching about the education in Africa, I came across an interesting article. I looked into this article and found out some interesting facts. There are 128 million school-aged children in Africa, but of those 128 million, 17 million never get the chance to even attend school. 37 million of the African children who do attend school, though, learn very little, so little in fact that they don't know much more after school than the children who had never attended school. 

Seven of Africa's countries have at least 40 percent of children that were not able to meet a minimum standard of learning by the fourth or fifth grades. Over 50 percent of students that are in school are not learning basic skills by the time they finish elementary in Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Zambia. Results have shown that 61 million African children will reach adulthood and still not have the basic skills that are required to have a successful, productive life. 

It has been found that there is an education inequality between the rich and the poor. Poor African's have a bigger disadvantage when it comes to education than rich African's have. Using Ethiopia as an example, 68.3 percent of the poor population experiences education poverty, while only 13.8 percent of rich Africans do. 

Games and Sports in Africa

Two of the oldest-known board games came from Africa, according to this website. One of the games is Senet, which is no longer played around the world because no one wrote down the rules of the game. The other board game, Mancala/Mankala, is still a very popular game today, especially in Africa, but it is played around the world. Carved boards of wood is typically the way Mancala is played, but some people play it just on the ground. 

Mancala/Mankala is played by transfering stones, counters or buttons around a number of 'bins' or dips in the ground. There are more than 200 different versions of this ‘count and capture’ game, which is known by many different names in Africa, including wari/owari, kombe andaweet.

Most children's toys in Africa are usually homemade, instead of being bought from a store. Because of this, children often play their own games, a lot of which are played all over the world. Some of those games that children in Africa play include hide and seek and leap frog. Young boys typically play with old tire rims, and girls use ropes to jump rope and play with wooden dolls that their mom made. Children in Africa also play football, basketball and volleyball. 

The most popular sport in Africa is football, which is known as soccer in America. There have been several professional football players from Africa, including Didier Drogba from Ivory Coast, and Michael Essien from Ghana. A lot of children in Africa are found to be outside playing with a football (soccer ball), in hopes that someday, maybe they will become a professional player. 

Michael Essien, Ghana Africa

The All Africa Games is what is known as Africa's own Olympic Games. They were first held in 1960 in Madagascar and was created by French-speaking countries, but throughout the years, more African nations have joined. The All Africa Games is held every four years and is hosted by a different country each time. 

Chart of The All Africa Games Medals