NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Friday, October 27, 2017

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has said Nigeria and other African countries were lagging behind in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs).

UNESCO, in its latest Global Educational Monitoring (GEM) report said in sub-Saharan Africa, 41 per cent of children of primary school age do not complete basic education while 87 per cent do not reach the minimum proficiency level in reading.

The report added the situation meant that more than one in four young people in the region could not read or write proficiently.In the report obtained by The Guardian, GEM, which monitors progress of the internationally agreed SDGs for education, noted that in spite of the progress made in recent years, most countries on the continent were struggling to cater for their poorest children.

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Ernst.