The Conversation – Africa – Page 20

August 6, 2025

Somalia’s education crisis: why so few children attend school and what could be done to change that

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Abdifatah Ismael Tahir, Honorary Research Fellow, Global Development Institute, University of Manchester

Around 98 million children and youth in sub-Saharan Africa are out of school, accounting for nearly 40% of the global out-of-school population. This is disproportionately high, considering that the region accounts for roughly 15% of the world’s population. In simple terms, “out-of-school children” is defined as those within the age bracket for primary or lower secondary education who are not enrolled in either level.

One of the primary barriers to access is conflict. This is particularly evident in Somalia, which has endured violence and upheaval since the collapse of its central government in 1991. Various armed groups, including clan militias and al-Shabaab militants, have vied for control over the capital, with devastating consequences.

At present, nearly 3 million children and youth are out of school in Somalia out of an estimated 7.6 million school-age population. As the epicentre of conflict and displacement, Mogadishu experiences profound disruptions to educational access. Less than 23% of children eligible for primary education are enrolled, according to 2020 government statistics. Only 17% progress to secondary education.

I am a scholar of urban geography with a research focus on urban politics and governance. My co-researcher and I sought to examine the historical, social and economic factors over and above conflict contributing to the high number of out-of-school children in Mogadishu.

We found that public education is both limited and unevenly distributed. Government-run schools make up only 4% of the total number of schools in the city. These few public schools are disproportionately located in areas dominated by major clans, leaving minority communities and conflict-displaced populations with limited access to formal education.

A key barrier is the prohibitive cost of schooling. Equally important are entrenched cultural dynamics in areas populated by minority clans, where formal education, particularly for girls, is often undervalued in favor of technical skills or small-scale entrepreneurial training passed down through generations. Much like Somali society’s historical resistance to colonial education through Islamic schooling, many minority communities today rely on vocational skills as strategies of autonomy from dominant clans that control political and economic power and often restrict their access to opportunity.

By narrowing our focus to Mogadishu, our study offers a more detailed and localised understanding of the educational barriers within the city. It highlights the everyday choices, institutional fragmentation, and socio-religious imperatives that reproduce exclusion in ways that other studies have overlooked. It contributes to a more nuanced analysis of Somalia’s educational challenges, supporting the development of more targeted and effective policy recommendations and interventions.

The findings

Our qualitative study was conducted in two stages. We started with a review of academic literature, government and non-governmental reports and education policy documents. The aim was to trace the historical and structural causes of exclusion. This was followed by 21 semi-structured interviews with families of out-of-school children, teachers, education officials and policymakers at both regional and federal level.

Our findings suggest that the reasons children are out of school in Mogadishu are complex and deeply structural. On one level, we found that formal education is largely inaccessible. Government-funded public education is limited by the small number of schools and by its uneven distribution. Formal private school fees on the other hand range from US$120 to US$300 per year. This is far beyond the reach of most households, whose average monthly income stands at US$350.

Though no official statistics exist, anecdotal evidence suggests that hundreds of thousands of children are enrolled in Qur’anic schools, also known as madrassas. This is because madrassa instruction is culturally embedded and widely trusted. Many families also rely on madrassas because the fees are lower or negotiable and they offer flexible arrangements, such as discounted fees or waivers.

However, these institutions typically exclude academic subjects such as science, mathematics and language.

Families must choose between two parallel systems – formal and Islamic – that are neither harmonised nor mutually reinforcing. In many cases, children complete madrassa instruction without acquiring basic literacy or numeracy skills, stalling their educational progression.

This two-track education system goes back to the colonial era. There was resistance to western-style schools introduced in the 1930s which were seen as a foreign influence and religious dilution.

Spatial inequality and social identity also exclude people. Peripheral districts and neighbourhoods where minorities are concentrated suffer from underinvestment in educational infrastructure. These areas may be absent from national and municipal development plans. Some existing schools lack adequate sanitation facilities, libraries, and trained teaching staff.

For internally displaced persons, tenure insecurity and legal ambiguity further limit access to public services, including education.

What needs to happen

This situation is not unique to Somalia, but the scale of exclusion in Mogadishu is alarming. Education is more than academic instruction – it offers safety, structure and hope. When children can’t go to school, the consequences are profound: increased poverty, higher crime and weakened social cohesion.

The solution requires more than constructing classrooms. Based on our research and policy analysis, we propose some recommendations.

With a federal budget of only US$1 billion, the options are limited. For a start, the government should authorise madrassas to provide education up to grade 6 and repurpose primary schools into secondary institutions.

Flexible madrassas and mobile classrooms have shown notable resilience in times of crisis. In Hodan district of Mogadishu, Qur’anic schools adapted to the influx of the internally displaced by extending hours and reducing fees. These locally embedded systems should be formally recognised. They also deserve direct national support to ensure quality and alignment with strategic education goals.

Many community-run schools currently operate outside public planning and budgeting frameworks, yet they deliver critical services. In Somaliland, some schools have been financed through zakat (charitable donations) and diaspora contributions. Mogadishu should adapt this model.

While Islamic education enjoys broad legitimacy, its narrow curriculum constrains students’ prospects. This calls for a hybrid curriculum blending Qur’anic instruction with core academic subjects: literacy, numeracy and science. This has proven successful in pilot schools in Puntland state.

Finally, school construction and rehabilitation efforts should go to historically underserved districts first.

Mogadishu’s out-of-school children are not invisible. They are the future of the city. Including them requires more than donor-led programmes or technical solutions. It requires a political commitment to equity. This means formally recognising community efforts, bridging religious and secular traditions, and investing where it is needed most.

The research was supported by Education Above All (EAA), a global foundation based in Doha, Qatar, dedicated to ensuring equitable access to quality education, especially for vulnerable and marginalized populations. EAA was not involved in the research design, data analysis, interpretation of findings, or the writing of this paper, and holds no influence over its content or conclusions.

– ref. Somalia’s education crisis: why so few children attend school and what could be done to change that – https://theconversation.com/somalias-education-crisis-why-so-few-children-attend-school-and-what-could-be-done-to-change-that-261721

August 6, 2025

Namibia’s forgotten genocide: how Bushmen were hunted and killed under German colonial rule

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Robert J. Gordon, Emeritus Professor, University of Vermont and Research Associate, University of the Free State

The genocide of Namibia’s Ovaherero and Nama people by German colonial forces (1904-1907) is widely documented. But much less is made of what came next – the genocide of the country’s Bushmen, also known as the San.

In 1992, anthropologist Robert J. Gordon published a book, The Bushman Myth and the Making of a Namibian Underclass, about these indigenous people of Namibia and how they were hunted and turned into servants by German colonisers.

Now it has been thoroughly revised and has been republished as The Bushman Myth Revisited: Genocide, Dispossession and the Road to Servitude. We asked him five questions.

Why a revised, rewritten book?

Today, most Bushmen still live a life of servitude in their own country. Local San and human rights activists encouraged me to bring out an updated and inexpensive version, which the University of Namibia Press has just published. The original editions were published in the US, making them virtually unobtainable in Namibia, where they needed to be read and discussed.

Since the first edition, an extraordinary number of books on German colonialism have been published, including my own. These inspired the use of key concepts in the book like platzgeist, where a particular zeitgeist (spirit of the times) is anchored in a specific place (platz) that makes people engage in activities they might not normally do.

What was life like for indigenous people before colonialism?

The Kalahari Basin in southern Africa is one of the world’s richest ethnographic zones (areas with distinct cultures). The region is home to some of the oldest languages still in existence and the genetic diversity found in the zone indicates that it is home to one of the world’s original ancestral populations.

“Bushman” is used as a blanket term encompassing more than 200 ethnic groups. There is no “typical Bushman”; rather, they constitute a miscellany of fluid groups. “Bushman” is preferred by many local communities, possibly as a form of resistance against officialdom’s categorisation of them as San and “Marginals”. The term “San” is found only in one language, Khoekhoegowab, and means the same as Bushman.

I see them as convivial with a strong ideology of sharing. Colonial power is based on controlling access to what people desire, like money or livestock. Bushmen lived as hunter-gatherers, roaming across the landscape. They had a different concept of property, desiring neither money or livestock; they were uncontrollable and so they were treated as animals and subject to annihilation.

What was the genocidal platzgeist?

First, some background. Today’s Namibia was a German colony called German South West Africa from 1884. The 1904-1907 genocidal Herero-Nama war was decisive, as Germany sought to create a German haven by encouraging settlers.

The north-east arc of the territory, stretching from Otavi to Gobabis with Grootfontein as the epicentre, served as a magnet, with a newly completed railway line, mines, vast agricultural potential and accessible land. In Grootfontein alone, the number of settler farms increased from 15 in 1903 to 175 by 1913. Almost all these cattle ranches were on land occupied by Bushmen.

Settlers were soon in trouble. By 1911, the Namibian press headlines screamed “Bushman Plague”. Two factors fed the panic. First, the killing of a policeman and a few white farmers. And second, Bushman activities, allegedly “brigandage” or banditry, were hindering the flow of sorely needed migrant contract workers from the Owambo and Kavango regions to work on the newly discovered Luderitzbucht diamond fields. The Chamber of Mines wanted the area “sanitised”.

Accordingly, the German governor ordered that Bushmen could be shot if they were believed to be attempting to resist arrest by officials or settlers. Over 400 anti-Bushman patrols covering some 60,000km² were deployed from 1911 to 1913.

But settlers and officials considered these measures inadequate. Settlers continued to terrorise Bushmen without as much as a slap on the wrist. “Bushman hunts” continued until the South African takeover of the territory in 1915 when the country became known as South West Africa.

We don’t know how many Bushmen died, but as I explain in my book, official estimates put Bushmen numbers in 1913 at 8,000-12,000. In 1923 it was 3,600. This gives an indication of the magnitude of the killings.

What oiled the genocide was the settler platzgeist. The dominant ethos was one of besiegement, of being threatened by unpredictable external forces. The farmers, attracted by generous government support and subsidies, were mostly discharged soldiers, ill-trained in farming, lacking crucial local knowledge, and schooled in racist arrogance. The situation bred insecurity, fear and hyper-masculinity.

Bushmen, with their reputed ability to camouflage themselves and to track and hunt using poisoned arrows for which there was no known antidote, epitomised their worst nightmare as they sought to establish overlordship on their isolated farms. Believed to be like predatory game, Bushmen had to be exterminated as a group. This was genocide.

What happened after the genocide?

Repression continued under South African rule from 1915 until independence in 1990, although it was less extreme. The possession of Bushman bows and arrows was made illegal. Bushmen were steadily dispossessed of their territory to make way for game reserves and settler farms.

As late as the 1970s, the administration was still thinking of relocating 30,000 Bushmen to the proclaimed artificially created Bushmanland, which constituted 2% of the territory they had once occupied.

The vast majority remained in their traditional areas now under the overlordship of settler farmers, where they sank into a situation of servitude. With Namibia’s independence, the situation worsened. New labour laws set a minimum wage, making it uneconomical to keep Bushmen workers. And many farmers switched to game farming or sold to black farmers who preferred to hire their kinsfolk.

The result was that Bushmen were forced into communal areas or peri-urban informal settlements, where they eke out a precarious living.

Where does this find these people today?

Bushmen are currently found in varying states of servitude, doing largely menial labour in the north and north-eastern regions, where they were once the ancestral inhabitants. The government is trying to assist Bushmen, mainly with welfare grants and a few overcrowded resettlement farms.

Search “Namibian Bushmen” on the internet and one is bombarded with glamourised images of Bushmen in traditional dress demonstrating hunting and tracking. Such narratives, largely the result of tourism boosters, reinforce the myth of the “pristine” Bushmen. The history of genocide and servitude is airbrushed out.

Robert J. Gordon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Namibia’s forgotten genocide: how Bushmen were hunted and killed under German colonial rule – https://theconversation.com/namibias-forgotten-genocide-how-bushmen-were-hunted-and-killed-under-german-colonial-rule-261267

August 5, 2025

Do elephants make deliberate gestures to ask for things? Our study says yes

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Vesta Eleuteri, PhD candidate, Universität Wien

Elephants are known for their intelligence, strong social bonds, and good memories. But do they communicate to show real intention? A new study suggests they do. The research showed that elephants gestured to ask for food when a person was around and that they kept gesturing when they didn’t receive all the food. These are signs that the elephants are trying to communicate with intention.

We spoke to lead author Vesta Eleuteri, a PhD candidate, to learn more about what this means and why it matters.

Why did you study how elephants use gestures to communicate?

Most of the research on elephant communication is on their calls and chemical signals, likely because of their extraordinary hearing and smell. How elephants communicate with gestures is comparatively less studied. But there are descriptions of elephants using many different body movements and displays in different contexts, which suggests a key role of gestures in elephant communication.

But whether elephants gesture intentionally to others to communicate goals in mind has not been systematically explored before. My colleagues and I study the cognition and communication of animals to understand how complex cognitive skills evolved, which is what this article is based on.

In our study led by the University of Vienna and in collaboration with the University of St Andrews, the University of Portsmouth and City University of New York, we show that semi-captive elephants use many different gestures intentionally to ask a human to give them apples (their goal).

We found that the elephants used 38 different gesture types intentionally. The elephants kept gesturing when they only got half the apples (only partially reached their goal), while they changed gestures when they got no apples (did not reach their goal), both key behaviours to establish intentional use.

Why is it important to know whether their communication is intentional?

The ability to intentionally communicate goals in mind using a variety of gestures might help elephants navigate their complex social lives. By showing that semi-captive elephants gesture intentionally to humans using many different gesture types, our study builds on the evidence that this ability is not unique to primates, but that it has repeatedly emerged during evolution.

Here we consider intentionality as “goal-directed intentionality”, which is the ability to communicate goals we have in mind to others. This was in the past considered to be a unique human skill. Today we know that all the other apes and even some other primates (although in a less flexible way) communicate intentionally using over 70 different gesture types to communicate many different goals in mind. Some examples include gesturing for things like “come here”; “give me that”; “groom me”.

In non-primates, this intentionality was shown only in a few animals, from guppy fish to Arabian babblers. But typically this was done with one or two gestures and for specific goals, like “follow me”.

Elephants are distantly related to humans in evolution. We last shared a common ancestor with them over 100 million years ago. But, like apes, they are highly intelligent and live in complex societies where they have many different types of relationships (from kin to allies, friends and strangers). Also, there are descriptions of elephants using many different body movements and displays during many different contexts. These include when they greet, affiliate, play with each other or even when they travel together.

What gestures did the elephants use, and how do you know they were on purpose?

The elephants in semi-captivity often reached their trunks or swung them back and forth towards the human or the tray with apples. This made it clear they were communicating that they wanted the apples.

Elephant gestures.

To know whether the elephants were using their gestures intentionally, we applied the behavioural criteria first created to study the development of intentional communication in human infants. These are: audience directedness, persistence and elaboration.

Signallers should use gestures when there is a recipient and appropriately according to whether he/she is looking or not (audience directedness). For example, if the recipient is not looking at them, they should use tactile gestures instead of visual gestures that the recipient would not see.

After gesturing, signallers should wait for the recipient to react and, if the recipient does not react as they wanted, they should keep gesturing (persistence) or change gestures (elaboration) to clarify what they wanted.

I can make an example. If I want to ask you to pass me the salt (my goal), I first should consider whether you are looking at me and, if you are, I may reach my hand towards the salt (audience directedness). If you don’t react or pass me the wrong thing, like the pepper, I should keep gesturing (persistence) or should change gesture by, for example, pointing towards the salt to clarify I wanted the salt from you (elaboration).

You worked with semi-captive elephants; do wild elephants act the same?

We and many other elephant experts have observed wild elephants gesturing apparently intentionally to each other (and even to us!) many times in the field. Nonetheless, we cannot confirm their ability to gesture intentionally merely from our observations. Science is there to systematically test with data the intuitions or feelings we get from observations.

Whether wild elephants use the same gestures we observed in this semi-captive group is an interesting question that needs to be explored. The same goes for assessing if different elephant groups or populations use different gestures. Based on previous descriptions, wild elephants should use, intentionally, a few of the gestures we found (trunk reaches or swings) but maybe they don’t use some of the “more creative” ones like the “blow leaf in the air” our elephant Pfumo had fun using.

What’s next for your research?

We want to systematically test whether wild elephants gesture intentionally to each other, describe the repertoire of their intentional gestures and the goals (meanings) they use these gestures for (they may say to each other: “travel with me”, “move away”, “stop that”). We have thousands of videos collected in two elephant populations in South Africa that I am video coding for gestures and their intentional use.

It will take time to define the repertoire and meanings of elephant intentional gestures. But we hope to someday do this and to compare the gestures of different populations to understand if elephants may have different “gestural languages”.

Studying animal communication offers “a window” into our own language, into our minds, because it allows us to understand what, if anything, makes language unique. Showing that animals have so much in common with us makes people empathise more with them and care more about them, which is important for their conservation.

Most importantly, studying animal communication is crucial because we can understand animals better and, if we know them better, we can take better measures to safeguard them.

Vesta Eleuteri is affiliated to the University of Vienna and receives funding from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) under the grant “DK Cognition and Communication 2”: W1262-B29 (10.55776/W1262).

– ref. Do elephants make deliberate gestures to ask for things? Our study says yes – https://theconversation.com/do-elephants-make-deliberate-gestures-to-ask-for-things-our-study-says-yes-261782

August 5, 2025

Sudan’s rebel force has declared a parallel government: what this means for the war

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Samir Ramzy, Researcher, Helwan University

Sudan’s south-western city of Nyala in Darfur recently became the centre of a significant political development.

After more than two years of fighting Sudan’s army, an alliance of armed and political groups backed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces announced the formation of a parallel government on 20 July 2025.

The new administration, dubbed the Government of Peace and Unity, is a coalition of armed movements from Darfur in Sudan’s western region, and Kordofan in the central region. Together, these regions account for about 46% of Sudan’s total land area.

The coalition has made Nyala its base. The city is a transit hub, with an airport and railway terminus. It is also a trading centre for gum arabic, one of Sudan’s largest exports and a key ingredient in making food, drinks and medicines.

The coalition’s stated aim is to establish a more representative governing structure for Sudan’s peripheral regions. It has 24 member groups.

In my view, however, the creation of a parallel government reflects the reality that neither the Rapid Support Forces nor its rival Sudanese army is close to victory. This view is informed by my research on Sudan’s political developments and its conflict dynamics for close to a decade.

The creation of a parallel government appears to be about entrenching the paramilitary group’s control in its western strongholds as the conflict continues. It risks cementing a permanent division of the country.

Why form a parallel government?

The Rapid Support Forces emerged from the Janjaweed militias that fought in Darfur, western Sudan, in the 2000s. Once allied with the state, the group grew into a powerful governmental paramilitary force, competing with the Sudanese Armed Forces for control of Sudan’s politics and economy.

When full-scale war broke out in April 2023, the Rapid Support Forces quickly seized much of western Sudan, particularly the Darfur region. It is country’s largest region, home to around 10 million people and spanning 500,000 square kilometres.

Darfur shares borders with Libya, Chad and the Central African Republic. It is also the Rapid Support Forces’ leadership’s home territory. It contains vast reserves of gold, fertile farmland and major production zones for gum arabic.

With little chance of outright military victory and its image in tatters, the paramilitary group has sought to reinvent itself politically. The group’s reputation has been devastated by reports of ethnic cleansing, sexual violence and atrocities against civilians.

The new Government of Peace and Unity is its attempt to gain favour. By forging alliances with other armed movements and community groups, the group is trying to position itself as the voice of Sudan’s marginalised peripheries.

Coalition partners include the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), the largest non-state armed group in Sudan. The group controls territory in Kordofan and advocates for the establishment of a secular state.

The new coalition’s founding charter calls for:

a decentralised political system
granting Sudan’s regions significant autonomy over local governance and resources.

This resonates with communities such as the Fur who have suffered decades of exclusion by Sudan’s political elite. Most of these leaders come from the country’s northern and central regions.

The timing of the announcement reflects both political and military calculations.

The Rapid Support Forces and its allies control large areas in western Sudan but have faced challenges expanding further east, where the Sudanese army remains entrenched.

Establishing a formal administration allows the coalition to strengthen its influence in the territories it already holds, and build alliances with local communities. It also helps create political structures that can engage with external actors.

Broadening the political base

Key figures from influential political groups have taken senior positions within the parallel government.

The Rapid Support Forces commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (also known as Hemedti) has assumed the role of president of the presidential council. Abdelaziz al-Hilu, the leader of SPLM-N, was appointed as vice-president.

Fadlallah Burma, head of a faction of the Umma Party, the former ruling party, took the position of speaker of the legislative council. Mohamed al-Ta’ayshi, a politician from the Arab Ta’aisha tribe, was appointed prime minister.

Leaders from African-origin communities such as the Fur have also taken positions within the administration. Many of these groups have faced Sudanese army airstrikes and have historical grievances against the central state.

However, legitimacy at home is not enough. The Rapid Support Forces also hopes to use foreign alliances to force international recognition.

Kenya hosted the coalition’s launch conference. The group has also cultivated ties with actors in Chad, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and eastern Libya. These relationships have already helped the group consolidate control over key border areas, particularly in Libya, which spans a 382km border.

Serious challenges remain

The Rapid Support Forces-led project faces major obstacles.

Internal rivalries over power sharing have delayed the announcement of a full cabinet. Key ministries, including defence, foreign affairs and finance, remain unassigned.

Militarily, the Rapid Support Forces cannot claim uncontested authority even in its western strongholds. Sudanese army-allied forces still control El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur. The army also maintains an overwhelming advantage in the air, making it impossible for the parallel government to project control beyond its core zones.

Internationally, the initiative has been widely condemned by the African Union and the Arab League.

The risks ahead

The failure of international mediation has left Sudan’s conflict at an impasse.

Tensions between Egypt and the United Arab Emirates – both key players in an international mediation effort that also includes the US and Saudi Arabia – have further complicated the search for a political solution.

Their tensions led to the postponement of a peace meeting in Washington in July 2025. The meeting was called off after Egypt, which supports the army, rejected the UAE’s proposal to exclude the two major warring parties from Sudan’s transitional government.

In this context, the Rapid Support Forces’ bid for legitimacy may fuel a more intense struggle with the army rather than a push towards compromise.

Three battlegrounds are likely to escalate.

The battle for El Fasher: Military confrontations are likely to escalate in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, as it remains the only major area in the region not under the control of the Rapid Support Forces.
The air war: The paramilitary group may try to procure advanced weapons to counter the army’s air dominance.
The humanitarian front: The parallel government could use aid routes to gain recognition. The UN has shown flexibility in engaging with de facto authorities in Sudan, prompting the army to block such efforts by controlling border crossings and routes as much as possible.

The longer the stalemate lasts, the greater the risk that Sudan will fragment beyond repair, which is unlikely to benefit any party involved.

What needs to happen next

One immediate step the international community could take is to expand and strictly enforce the arms embargo on Sudan. This could reduce the flow of weapons to both sides and create pressure for a return to negotiations.

In addition, a new political process is urgently needed, one less vulnerable to regional rivalries than the four-nation initiative.

International actors must also find ways to deliver humanitarian aid directly, even if that means air drops into hard-to-reach areas. This will help reduce civilian suffering and prevent both sides from weaponising aid access.

Without such interventions, Sudan’s future could be defined by a protracted war that leaves the state hollowed out and communities further devastated.

Samir Ramzy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Sudan’s rebel force has declared a parallel government: what this means for the war – https://theconversation.com/sudans-rebel-force-has-declared-a-parallel-government-what-this-means-for-the-war-262363

August 4, 2025

South African learners struggle with reading comprehension: study reveals a gap between policy and classroom practice

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Tracy Kitchen, Lecturer: Student Academic Development, Rhodes University

South African learners consistently struggle with reading comprehension, performing poorly in both international and local assessments. A significant issue is that 81% of grade 4 learners (aged 9 or 10) are unable to read for meaning: they can decode words, but do not necessarily understand them.

While this problem has received considerable attention, no clear explanation has emerged.

In my recent PhD thesis, I considered a crucial, but often overlooked, piece of the puzzle – the curriculum policy. My research sought to uncover and understand the gaps and contradictions in reading comprehension, especially between policy and practice, in a grade 4 classroom.

This research revealed a difference between curriculum policy and practice, and between what learners seemed to have understood and what they actually understood in a routine reading comprehension task.

My main findings were that:

grade 4 learners were being asked overly simple, literal questions about what they were reading, despite the text being more complex than expected
the kinds of questions that learners should be asked (as indicated in the curriculum policy) were different from what they were being asked
this gap led to learners seeming to be more successful at reading comprehension than they actually were.

Pinpointing the gaps between what the policy says and how reading comprehension is actually taught at this crucial stage of development (grade 4) could pave the way for more effective interventions.

Curriculum policy

South African teachers are expected to base their reading comprehension instruction and assessment on the guidelines provided by the 2012 Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement.

The policy outlines specific cognitive skill levels – essentially, ways of thinking and understanding – that learners should master for each reading task. These levels are drawn from Barrett’s 1956 Taxonomy of Reading Comprehension, an international guideline. It’s based on the popular Bloom’s Taxonomy of Reading Comprehension, which categorises reading comprehension according to varying skill levels.

According to Barrett’s Taxonomy, reading comprehension involves five progressively complex levels:

Literal comprehension: Identifying meaning that is directly stated in the text. (For example, “Name the animals in the story”.)
Reorganisation: Organising, paraphrasing, or classifying information that is explicitly stated. (“Find four verbs in the story to describe what the animals did.”)
Inference: Understanding meaning that is not directly stated, but implied. (“When in the story is the leopard being selfish?”)
Evaluation: Making judgements about the text’s content or quality. (“Who do you think this story is usually told to?”)
Appreciation: Making emotional or personal evaluations about the text. (“How well was the author able to get the message across?”)

Typically, reading comprehension tasks will assess a range of these cognitive skills.

South Africa’s Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement document specifies (on pages 91-92) that all reading comprehension tasks should comprise questions that are:

40% literal/reorganisation (lower-order thinking skills)
40% inferential (middle-order)
20% evaluation and appreciation (higher-order).

This approach aims to allow most students to demonstrate a basic understanding of the text, while challenging more advanced learners.

However, as my classroom case study shows, the system appears to be failing. There was a mismatch between the policy and what was taking place in the classroom.

Classroom practice

For this research, I observed the reading comprehension practices in a single classroom in a public school in the Eastern Cape province. This took place over six months, at a time when schools were not fully reopened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The task in question included a text and activity selected by the teacher from a textbook aligned with the policy. My analysis (which used Appraisal, a linguistic framework that tracks evaluative meaning) showed that most of the text’s meaning was implicit. To fully understand it, learners would need higher-order thinking and sophisticated English first-language skills. This was a surprising finding for a grade 4 resource, especially because most learners in this study were not English first-language speakers.

Even more surprising, learners achieved seemingly high marks on comprehension, with an average of 82.9%. This suggested they understood this complex text.

However, I found that the questions in the textbook did not align with policy. Instead of the balance of skills required by the policy, 73% of the questions called only for lower-order skills. Only 20% were inferential and a mere 7% required evaluation or appreciation (middle- to higher-order skills).

At least six of the 15 available marks could be gained simply by listing explicitly stated items, not requiring genuine comprehension.

This reveals that, in this classroom, activities labelled as policy-compliant actually tested only lower-order comprehension. Learners could pass simply by identifying and listing information from the text. This creates a false sense of comprehension success, as revealed by the high marks.

When learners were tested on the same text but using different questions that I designed to align with the policy requirements, they scored lower marks, especially for the higher-order questions.

This mismatch might partly explain why South Africans score poorly in international tests (which require more higher-order thinking).

Why this matters and moving forward

These findings are concerning, as learners may be lulled into believing that they are successful readers. A false sense of accomplishment could have significant impacts on the rest of their education.

Comprehension difficulties can’t be blamed solely on the disconnect between policy and practice, however. Many other contextual factors shape how learners perform in reading comprehension tasks.

In my study, factors like COVID-19, insufficient home language teaching policies, educational inequalities, and the pressures on teachers during a crisis (brought on by COVID-19) all contributed to the literacy crisis.

However, two key points became clear during this study.

Firstly, teaching materials favour lower-order comprehension skills, skewing perceptions of learners’ abilities.

Secondly, teachers may lack the knowledge, resources or motivation to adjust these materials to truly align with the national policy in how reading comprehension is assessed.

This calls for urgent intervention in how reading comprehension is taught and assessed and in how teachers are prepared to do this effectively.

This research was partially funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF).

– ref. South African learners struggle with reading comprehension: study reveals a gap between policy and classroom practice – https://theconversation.com/south-african-learners-struggle-with-reading-comprehension-study-reveals-a-gap-between-policy-and-classroom-practice-260033

August 4, 2025

The global health system can build back better after US aid cuts – here’s how

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Jonathan E. Cohen, Professor of Clinical Population and Public Health Sciences, Keck School of Medicine and Director of Policy Engagement, Institute on Inequalities in Global Health, University of Southern California, University of Southern California

Steep cuts in US government funding have thrown much of the field of global health into a state of fear and uncertainty. Once a crown jewel of US foreign policy, valued at some US$12 billion a year, global health has been relegated to a corner of a restructured State Department governed by an “America First” agenda.

Whatever emerges from the current crisis, it will look very different from the past.

As someone who has spent a 25-year career in global health and human rights and now teaches the subject to graduate students in California, I am often asked whether young people can hope for a future in the field. My answer is a resounding yes.

More than ever, we need the dedication, humility and vision of the next generation to reinvent the field of global health, so that it is never again so vulnerable to the political fortunes of a single country. And more than ever, I am hopeful this will be the case.

To understand the source of my hope, it is important to recall what brought US engagement in global health to its current precipice – and how a historic response to specific diseases paradoxically left African health systems vulnerable.

Disease and dependency

Over two decades ago, the field of global health as we currently know it emerged out of the global response to HIV/Aids – among the deadliest pandemics in human history. The pandemic principally affected people of reproductive age and babies born to HIV-positive parents.

The creation of the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) in 2003 was at the time the largest-ever bilateral programme to combat a single disease. It redefined the field of global health for decades to come, with the US at its centre. While both the donors and issues in the field would multiply over the years, global health would never relinquish its origins in American leadership against HIV/Aids.

Pepfar placed African nations in a state of extreme dependence on the US. We are now witnessing the results – not for the first time. The global financial crisis of 2008 reduced development assistance to health, which generated new thinking about financing and domestic resource mobilisation.

Yet, the US continued to underwrite Africa’s disease responses through large contracts to American universities and implementers. This was for good reason, given the urgency of the problem, the growing strength of Africa’s health systems as a result of Pepfar, and the moral duty of the world’s richest country.

With the rise of right-wing populism and the polarising effects of COVID-19, global health would come to be seen by many Americans as an elite enterprise. The apparent trade-off between public health countermeasures and economic life during COVID-19 – a false choice to experts who know a healthy workforce to be a precondition for a strong economy – alienated many voters from the advice of disease prevention experts. The imperative to “vaccinate the world” and play a leadership role in global health security lacked a strong domestic constituency. It proved no match for monopolistic priorities of the pharmaceutical industry and the insularity and economic anxieties of millions of Americans.

This history set the stage for the sudden abdication of US global health leadership in early 2025. By the time the Department of Government Efficiency came for USAID, many viewed global health as a relic of the early response to HIV/Aids, an excuse for other governments to spend less on health, or an industry of elites. The field was an easy target, and the White House must have known it.

Yet therein lies the hope. If global health came of age around a single disease, an exercise of US soft power, and a cadre of elite experts, it now has an opportunity to change itself from the ground up. What can emerge is a new global health compact, in which African governments design robust health systems for themselves and enlist the international community to assist from behind.

Opportunity to build back better

To build a new global health compact for Africa, the first change must be from a focus on combating individual diseases to ensuring that all people have the opportunity for health and well-being throughout their lives. Rather than allowing entire health systems to be defined by the response to HIV/Aids, tuberculosis and malaria, Africa needs integrated systems that promote:

primary care, which brings services for the majority of health needs closer to communities
health promotion, which enables people to take control of all aspects of their health and well-being
long-term care, which helps all people function and maintain quality of life over their entire lifespan.

No global trend compels this shift more than population ageing, which will soon engulf every nation as a result of lengthening life expectancy and declining fertility. As the proportion of older adults grows to outstrip that of children, societies need systems of integrated healthcare that help people manage multiple diseases. They don’t need fragmented programmes that produce conflicting medical advice, dangerous drug interactions, and crippling bureaucracy. Time is running out to make this fundamental shift.

Second, there is a need to shift the relationship between low-income and high-income nations towards shared investment in the service of local needs. This is beginning to happen in some places, and it will require greater sacrifices on all sides.

Low-income governments need to spend a higher percentage of their GDP on healthcare. That will in turn require addressing the many factors that stymie the redistribution of wealth, from corruption to debt to lack of progressive taxation. The US and other high-income countries need to pay their fair share, while also sharing decision-making over how global public goods, from vaccines to disease surveillance to health workers, are shared and distributed in an interconnected world.

Third, there is need to change the narrative of global health in wealthy countries such as the US to better connect to the concerns of voters who are hostile to globalism itself. This means addressing people’s real fears that public health measures will cost them their job, force them to close their business, or advance a pharmaceutical industry agenda. It means justifying global health in terms that people can relate to and agree with – that is, helping to save lives without taking responsibility for other countries’ health systems.

It means forging unlikely alliances between those who believe in leadership from the so-called global south and those who take an insular view of America’s role in the world.

Leading from behind

Make no mistake. I am not counting on this – or any – US administration to reinvent global health on terms that are more responsive to current disease trends, more equitable between nations, and more relevant to American voters.

But nor would I want them to. To create the global health for the future, the leadership must come not only from the US, but rather from a shared commitment among the community of nations to give and receive according to their capacities and needs. And that is something to hope for.

Jonathan E. Cohen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The global health system can build back better after US aid cuts – here’s how – https://theconversation.com/the-global-health-system-can-build-back-better-after-us-aid-cuts-heres-how-259798

August 3, 2025

Ubuntu matters: rural South Africans believe community care should go hand-in-hand with development

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Simphiwe Gongqa, PhD candidate, Rhodes University

The failure of many development initiatives has led some scholars, especially those associated with the post-development and decolonial schools of thought, to call for alternatives to development.

The idea of development is a very influential way of explaining inequalities between different parts of the world. Most people think of some parts of the world as ‘developed’ and others as ‘developing’ and believe that those in the ‘developing’ world need to follow in the footsteps of those ahead of them on a universal path to development.

However, critics of development reject this way of thinking. They believe that development damages the environment and is a form of cultural imperialism and that people should rather look to Indigenous concepts and practices to find alternative ways to live a good life. The African concept of Ubuntu is often mentioned.

This term can be explained with reference to the isiZulu saying ‘umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu’ which means ‘a person is a person through other people’. It entails an ethics of care, compassion and cooperation.

Concepts like Ubuntu are often contrasted with the idea of development. Advocates of alternatives believe that people in the Global South can draw on these concepts, rather than the idea of development, in order to improve their lives.

We both study development and are interested in how communities in Africa understand development, including the question of whether or not people in Africa are pursuing alternatives to development.

Based on our work, we contributed a chapter to a recent book which explores the question of alternatives to development in the Global South. Our contribution to this book looks specifically at the question of how South Africans understand development and Ubuntu and whether they see Ubuntu as a possible alternative to development.

We spoke to people living in four marginalised communities in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. Such communities would be regarded by mainstream development thinkers as in need of development. These communities were also chosen because the people living there would be likely to have some understanding of the concept of Ubuntu as residents are isiZulu or isiXhosa speakers, two of the sociolinguistic groups commonly associated with the idea of Ubuntu.

We found that people in these communities value both development and Ubuntu and see the two concepts as related to each other, but not necessarily in the way that either development or post-development theorists imagine. This study supports our previous research suggesting that people continue to value development.

Respondents’ views on development and Ubuntu

There were some differences in the way in which the communities spoke about development and Ubuntu. The KwaZulu-Natal communities placed emphasis on infrastructure, education and health, when asked to define how they understand development.

Typical responses of KwaZulu-Natal residents to the question ‘What is development?’ included:

We want development … in order to have roads, [government housing], clinics and farming initiatives.
When we say that a place is developed, we see schools, libraries, roads, churches and clinics.
Things like water, houses [government housing], electricity, and sewerage systems.
There should be libraries, schools, houses [government housing], water, electricity, sewerage systems and hospitals.

In the Eastern Cape, where only rural respondents were interviewed, residents mentioned infrastructure (roads, houses and schools) less often than those in KwaZulu-Natal and placed greater emphasis on income-generation opportunities, employment opportunities and support for farming. Some of the responses are given below:

Development means the creation of jobs to me.
Development means building. For example, building creches in the village, planting crops and creating jobs.
Development is growth. For example, rearing chickens and other animals for you to grow financially.

When defining Ubuntu, respondents emphasised care, compassion, cooperation, helpfulness, mutual respect, harmony, consideration, dignity and a willingness to share.

Here are some of the typical responses given when people were asked to define Ubuntu:

It is being able to live with one another, you see. A person is a person because of other people kind of thing, and you must get along with all people and there shouldn’t be a person that you hate. You must be able to help another person in need if you can and there must be harmony with everyone.
Ubuntu is about unity and empathy and love, yes. If we speak of Ubuntu, we speak of thinking for each other, and helping each other.

When asked about the relationship between Ubuntu and development, most respondents suggested that Ubuntu and development can and should work together.

Respondents commonly argued that development could best be advanced if people showed Ubuntu, which was presented as an ethic of care and cooperation. Consider the following comment:

[Development and Ubuntu] go hand in hand because when I have something, I have to pull up a person that I see who is struggling and place them at an equal footing with me or maybe higher than me. I don’t look down on them because they are struggling, and I shouldn’t watch them walk to town everyday whilst I have a car that can help them because they are disadvantaged. If I have food, and a fellow person is hungry; I must give them food for free, yes, that is Ubuntu.

The strong sense from our interviews is that people want development (understood as the provision of basic services and the general improvement of their lives) and they want it to be brought about in a way that is characterised by an ethics of Ubuntu (understood as an ethic of care and cooperation).

Advocates of alternatives need to be cautious

Our research suggests that at least some Global South communities engage with concepts like Ubuntu and development in ways that do not support claims that people should abandon development and live according to Indigenous concepts and practices to have a better life. Rather than viewing Ubuntu as an alternative to development, the people we interviewed suggest that development and Ubuntu are complementary.

When seeking to articulate alternatives, it is important to be attentive to what people mean by development and Ubuntu so that activists and scholars from different communities can work together to build better lives for all.

We acknowledge the role of Nhlanhla Mkhutle who conducted the KwaZulu-Natal fieldwork for this study and who co-authored the chapter upon which this article is based.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Ubuntu matters: rural South Africans believe community care should go hand-in-hand with development – https://theconversation.com/ubuntu-matters-rural-south-africans-believe-community-care-should-go-hand-in-hand-with-development-259422

August 3, 2025

Drones, disinformation and guns-for-hire are reshaping conflict in Africa: new book tracks the trends

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Alessandro Arduino, Affiliate Lecturer, King’s College London

Alessandro Arduino has researched Africa’s security affairs with a particular focus on the use of private military companies and other guns-for-hire across the continent. In his latest book, Money for Mayhem, Arduino examines how military privatisation intersects with international power dynamics. Drawing on fieldwork, interviews and firsthand data, he tracks actors from Russia, China and the Middle East to explore how they profit from instability across Africa.

What war trends did you identify in your book?

In Money for Mayhem, I chart the rise of mercenaries, private military companies and hackers-for-hire, alongside emerging technologies like armed drones.

Nowhere does this rise ignite more readily than in Africa. The continent is flush with abundant natural resources that offer lucrative gains, but is hobbled by weak post-coup states desperate for foreign support. The continent has also been fractured by power vacuums, creating ineffective or weak regional and continental institutions that enable militant networks.

As a result, mercenaries and contractors have returned to the central stage in Africa. They were once the not-so-hidden hand in post-colonial civil wars, such as in Angola in the 1970s and Sierra Leone in the mid-1990s where highly trained mercenaries profited from the conflict.

Today, guns for hire wield profound geopolitical influence.

What did you find out about the key players?

Take Russia’s Wagner Group. It continues to be active from Libya to Sudan. The group is known for deploying paramilitary forces, conducting disinformation campaigns and supporting powerful political figures from Mali to the Central African Republic. Following its leader’s death in 2023, the Wagner Group shifted its operations. Rebranded as the Africa Corps,the group serves as a key instrument of Moscow’s influence on the continent.

Then there are Turkish private military outfits operating from Tripoli to Mogadishu. Turkey’s private military companies are fast becoming a key instrument in President Recep Erdogan’s foreign policy. What sets these companies apart is their ability to pair boots on the ground with Turkey’s battle-proven armed drones. This fusion of a rentable army and an off-the-shelf air force could become a powerful export, serving Ankara’s political and economic ambitions in Africa.

Then there are the Chinese private security companies, protecting Chinese investments and citizens in Africa. Their rise mirrors Beijing’s deepening footprint, where it is pouring billions into infrastructure and mining projects. In volatile nations like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and South Sudan, weak and unreliable local security forces have created a vacuum that’s being filled by Chinese security contractors.

Through the ages, the mercenary’s paradox has endured: despised yet indispensable. Their business thrives on perpetual chaos. Every ceasefire threatens their livelihood.

This dynamic was evident after Muammar Gaddafi’s fall in 2011 in Libya. Both the Government of National Accord in Tripoli and the rival Libyan National Army in the east turned to international mercenaries such as the Wagner Group and fighters from sub-Saharan Africa. This heavy dependence on foreign fighters obstructs national reconciliation.

The Wagner tale is instructive. Once a Kremlin proxy in resource-rich Africa, the group amassed its own power. It was dismantled when it outlived its usefulness. The dispatch of Russian generals to negotiate Wagner’s fate in 2023 from Libya to Niger was a lesson in power: the puppeteer remains firmly in control.

Russia’s foreign and defence ministries moved swiftly to reassure Middle Eastern and African partners that operations would continue uninterrupted after the death of Wagner’s leader. This signalled that unofficial Russian forces would maintain their presence on the ground.

What is happening that’s new?

The revolution in modern warfare is evident across Africa. Mercenaries, armed drones and AI-driven disinformation campaigns are redefining conflict. Today’s battlefields are evolving at such a dizzying pace that even seasoned military experts are routinely caught flatfooted.

The speed of change is unprecedented.

Drones, once the province of great powers, have become commonplace. Inexpensive, lethal, versatile and ever more autonomous, they patrol the skies daily, ushering in a remote-warfare era that upends ethical, strategic and tactical norms.

The cost of a suicide drone, for instance, typically runs into a few thousand US dollars. A battle tank averages US$3–4 million. Three such drones and a skilled pilot can destroy a single tank, dramatically shifting the cost-benefit equation on the modern battlefield.

Africa was an early proving ground: drones shaped the Libyan civil war. Since 2019, multiple incidents of precision air strikes conducted by unknown aircraft have occurred in apparent violation of a United Nations arms embargo.

In early 2025, drones served as an off-the-shelf air force in the bombing of Port Sudan. Explosions rocked the vital humanitarian gateway in Sudan’s ongoing civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

Sudan’s army pinned these strikes on the Rapid Support Forces, highlighting the paramilitary group’s deadly embrace of drone warfare. Lacking a formal air force, drones offer the Rapid Support Forces a low-cost, high-lethality shortcut that delivers devastating blows while cloaking its operators in plausible deniability.

How else is the warfare landscape changing?

War is now being waged on other fronts as well.

Africa’s youthful population consumes information primarily via social media. This provides fertile ground for propaganda, disinformation and misinformation – amplified by artificial intelligence (AI) at minimal cost.

Deepfakes have burst onto the scene as a dire cybersecurity threat. AI-driven disinformation at an industrial scale is already a reality, magnifying hate speech and targeting the message to intended audiences with precision and at very low cost.

For example, TikTok’s own recommendation engine has already come under fire from African human rights groups for amplifying toxic rhetoric.

Already, false narratives thrive in Africa all on their own. AI’s true danger lies in its ability to turbocharge disinformation.

Governments recognise that defending the homeland no longer means guarding cables and servers alone. It also means safeguarding the integrity of information itself.

What needs to be done?

Based on my findings, I argue that the fractures today are tomorrow’s global crises. War has irrevocably changed, and its next phase is already upon us.

Marshalling global vigilance is a categorical imperative – or the world risks ceding control over violence. Building international consensus on already available enforcement mechanisms to regulate non-state armed actors is needed. There is also a need to strengthen global intelligence sharing to track the movements and influence of mercenaries across conflict zones.

Alessandro Arduino is an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI)

– ref. Drones, disinformation and guns-for-hire are reshaping conflict in Africa: new book tracks the trends – https://theconversation.com/drones-disinformation-and-guns-for-hire-are-reshaping-conflict-in-africa-new-book-tracks-the-trends-262256

August 1, 2025

A university bookshop in Ibadan tells the story of Nigeria’s rich publishing culture

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Assistant Professor, Harvard University

Driven by a desire to explore Nigeria’s literary and cultural history beyond the metropolis of Lagos, I took a road trip to Ibadan, once the most important university town in the country. Ibadan, in Oyo State, was the first city in Nigeria to have a university set up in 1948.

Ibadan is where the Mbari Club once gathered, an experimental space where Nigerian writers, artists and thinkers – among them Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, JP Clark, Christopher Okigbo, Uche Okeke, Bruce Onobrakpeya, Mabel Segun and South Africa’s Es’kia Mphahlele – met, debated and dreamed in the 1960s and 70s.

It’s the city where celebrated Nigerian artist and architect Demas Nwoko imagined and built his utopias. Where the Oxford University Press and Heinemann Educational Books established their west African headquarters.

Books have always been a form of cultural currency in Ibadan. The presence of major publishers meant that bookshops were not just retail outlets, but intellectual salons, sites of encounter and exchange.

So while in Ibadan I visited cultural spaces and independent bookshops but it was the charms of the University campus that mostly captured my imagination. And my favourite place was the University of Ibadan Bookshop. At this campus bookshop I lingered the most, in awe and wonder. Its eclectic range of books, journals, public lecture pamphlets, novels, poetry collections and monographs excited me.

Today, when the global publishing economy has increasingly digitised and centralised, the bookshop feels almost radical just by existing. It’s a reminder that intellectual life in Africa is not peripheral or derived from the west. It is present, prolific and profoundly local. To walk through the shelves of this bookshop was to encounter a history of African thought written and produced on its own terms.

As a scholar of African literature and archives, my research traces the hidden lives of spaces that have shaped publishing and archives. University bookshops have been overlooked but are essential nodes in the continent’s intellectual history.

A snapshot of Nigeria

This campus bookshop gives a snapshot of Nigeria as a print country. Here we witness the nation through its printed matter. A nation of prolific publishing. I found the literary output in the Ibadan campus bookshop not only vast but exuberant and unrelenting. It reflects the texture of the Nigerian personality: loud, boisterous, layered and insistent. Stacks upon stacks of books.

In these stacks, it dawned on me that beneath the surface lies a vibrant, ongoing literary discourse that is unmistakably Nigerian, and sadly not resonant far beyond its borders. These are books you don’t see on reference lists of “popular” and “influential” scholarship that privileges work produced and imported to Africa from the Euro-American academy.

I was especially intrigued with how the Nigerian academic and writer does not tire in producing academic and cultural journals. There are journals for every subject under the sun.

While the critical framework of African literature is too often shaped by the global north (see critiques by Ato Quayson, Biodun Jeyifo, Simon Gikandi and Grace Musila) in Ibadan, I saw a distinctly local and deeply African critical discourse rooted in place, language and lived experience. To walk into the University of Ibadan Bookshop is to step into legacy. Its shelves bear the weight of decades of African thought, theory and storytelling.

Despite being housed in an ageing building, it has stayed defiant. Even though floods destroyed books and computers worth a small fortune in 2019, the bookshop is still standing proudly. And there was pride too among the staff who were eager to help or answer any questions about the books.

More than bookshops

The University of Ibadan bookshop reminded me of the bookshop from my undergraduate days in Zimbabwe. Even though our campus bookshop was much smaller, I used to find pleasure going there in between lectures. It often felt like walking into a vault of African knowledge and memory.

Our bookshop at Midlands State University stocked old, canonical books alongside current literature. On occasion, rare, out-of-print secondhand books would appear on the shelves. The bargain sales also meant I spent most of my money there.

But to call these spaces on African university campuses “bookshops” hardly does them justice. They are hybrid cultural ecosystems that function as part bookshop, part print shop, stationer, library and sometimes even archive. They have long served as vital nodes in the circulation of African knowledge and thought.

Yet this ecosystem is rapidly eroding, undermined by the rise of internet culture, artificial intelligence, piracy and harsh economic conditions. The result is a slow but devastating disappearance of African intellectual memory. As scholars remind us, digital platforms are not neutral. They are structured by algorithms that often marginalise black and African knowledge. So, the loss of these analogue spaces is more than nostalgic, it is epistemic erasure.

In this digital age, there is something vital about the physical presence of bookshops on African campuses. Thanks to them, as a student, for me literature was the serendipity of discovery, the tactile feel of books, the beautiful persistence of a local knowledge system that was relatable and produced by people like me.

On the way out of the city, we stopped at Bower’s Tower. From there you can see Ibadan’s sprawling layout, the ancient hills from which the settlement was built, and its red roofs.

The view reflected the complexity and density of ideas the city has nurtured. And despite shifts in Nigeria’s publishing geography from here to Lagos and Abuja, Ibadan still matters. It’s a city that remembers, that archives, that holds on to knowledge.

Tinashe Mushakavanhu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. A university bookshop in Ibadan tells the story of Nigeria’s rich publishing culture – https://theconversation.com/a-university-bookshop-in-ibadan-tells-the-story-of-nigerias-rich-publishing-culture-262050

July 31, 2025

Cricket’s great global divide: elite schools still shape the sport

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Habib Noorbhai, Professor (Health & Sports Science), University of Johannesburg

If you were to walk through the corridors of some of the world’s leading cricket schools, you might hear the crack of leather on willow long before the bell for the end of the day rings.

Across the cricketing world, elite schools have served as key feeder systems to national teams for decades. They provide young players with superior training facilities, high-level coaching and competitive playing opportunities.

This tradition has served as cricket’s most dependable talent pipeline. But is it a strength or a symptom of exclusion?

My recent study examined the school backgrounds of 1,080 elite men’s cricketers across eight countries over a 30-year period. It uncovered telling patterns.

Top elite cricket countries such as South Africa, England and Australia continue to draw heavily from private education systems. In these nations, cricket success seems almost tied to one’s school uniform.

I argue that if cricket boards want to promote equity and competitiveness, they will need to broaden the talent search by investing in grassroots cricket infrastructure in under-resourced areas.

For cricket to be a sport that anyone with talent can succeed in, there will need to be more school leagues and entry-level tournaments as well as targeted investment in community-based hubs and non-elite school zones.

Findings

South Africa is a case in point. My previous study in 2020 outlined that more than half of its national players at One-Day International (ODI) World Cups came from boys-only schools (mostly private).

These schools are often well-resourced, with turf wickets, expert coaches and an embedded culture of competition. Unsurprisingly, the same schools tend to produce a high number of national team batters, as they offer longer game formats and better playing surfaces. Cricket’s colonial origins have influenced the structure and culture of school cricket being tied to a form of privilege.

In Australia and England, the story is not very different. Despite their efforts to diversify player sourcing, private schools still dominate. Even in cricketing nations that celebrate working-class grit, such as Australia, private school players continue to shape elite squads.

The statistics say as much; for example: about 44% of Australian Ashes test series players since 2010 attended private schools, and for England, the figure is 45%. That’s not grassroots, it could be regarded as gated turf…

Yet not all countries follow this route. The West Indies, Pakistan and Sri Lanka reflect very different models. Club cricket, informal play and community academies provide their players with opportunities to rise. These countries have lower reliance on private schools. Some of their finest players emerged from modest public schooling or neighbourhood cricketing networks.

India provides an interesting hybrid. Although elite schools such as St. Xavier’s and Modern School contribute players, most national stars emerge from public institutions or small-town academies. The explosion of the Indian Premier League since 2008 has also democratised access, pulling in talent from previously overlooked and underdeveloped cities.

In these regions, scouting is based on potential, not privilege.

So why does this matter?

At first glance, elite schools producing elite cricketers might appear logical. These institutions have the resources to nurture talent. But scratch beneath the surface and troubling questions appear.

Are national teams truly reflecting their countries? Or are they simply echo chambers of social advantage?

In South Africa, almost every Black African cricketer to represent the country has come through a private school (often on scholarship). That suggests that talent without access remains potentially invisible. It also places unfair pressure on the few who make it through, as if they carry the hopes of entire communities.

I found that in England, some county systems have started integrating players from state schools, but progress is slow. In New Zealand, where cricket is less centralised around private institutions, regional hubs and public schools have had more success in spreading opportunities. However, even there, Māori and Pasifika players remain underrepresented in elite squads.

Four steps that can be taken

1. One solution lies in recognising that schools don’t have a monopoly on talent. Cricket boards must increase investment in grassroots infrastructure, particularly in under-resourced areas. Setting up community hubs, supporting school-club partnerships and more regional competitions could discover hidden talent.

2. Another step is to improve the visibility and reach of scouting networks. Too often, selection favours players from known institutions. By diversifying trial formats and leveraging technology (such as video submissions or performance-tracking apps), selectors can widen their net. It’s already happening in India, where IPL scouts visit the most unlikely of places.

3. Coaching is another stumbling block. In many countries, high-level coaches are clustered in elite schools. National boards should consider optimising salaries as well as rotating certified coaches into public schools and regional academies. They should also ensure coaches are developed to be equipped to work with diverse learners and conditions.

4. Technology offers other exciting possibilities too. Virtual simulations, motion tracking and AI-assisted video reviews are now common in high-performance centres. Making simplified versions available to lower-income schools could level the playing field. Imagine a township bowler in South Africa learning to analyse their technique using only a smartphone and a free app?

Fairness in sport

The conversation about schools and cricket is not just about numbers or stats. It is about fairness. Sport should be the great leveller, not another mechanism of exclusion. If cricket is to thrive, it needs to look beyond scoreboards and trophies. It must ask who gets to play and who never gets seen?

A batter from a village school in India, a wicket-keeper from a government school in Sri Lanka or a fast bowler in a South African township; each deserves the chance to be part of the national story. Cricket boards, policymakers and educators must work together to make that possible.

The game will only grow when it welcomes players from all walks of life. That requires more than scholarships. It requires a reset of how we think about talent. Because the next cricket superstar may not wear a crest on their blazer. They may wear resilience on their sleeve.

Habib Noorbhai does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Cricket’s great global divide: elite schools still shape the sport – https://theconversation.com/crickets-great-global-divide-elite-schools-still-shape-the-sport-261709