by Steve Crabtree and Anita Pugliese
Gallup polls from 2009 to 2011 find sub-Saharan Africans with a secondary education are less likely to live in poverty, stressing the need for universal access to this level of education. Across the 38 countries surveyed, a median of 85% of adults with a primary education or less are living on less than $2 per day (based on household income in international dollars), versus 62% of those with a secondary education. Those with a secondary education are also less likely to say there were times in the past year when they did not have enough money to buy food they or their families needed.
Though many sub-Saharan African countries have made great strides toward achieving universal primary education, access to secondary education remains spotty. There is only enough capacity for 36% of children in the region to enroll in secondary education, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s 2011 Global Education Digest. The report states that the rising number of primary school graduates and the need for more sophisticated workers with higher-level skills have increased the demand for secondary education in many sub-Saharan African countries.
Secondary schools are also often important venues for job placement. “[Secondary education] not only links initial education to higher education, but also connects the school system to the labor market,” the report notes. Across the 38 sub-Saharan African countries studied, those with a secondary education are about twice as likely as those with a primary education or less to say they work full time for an employer.
