by Mariam Nundu

Created on: February 20, 2009

Are African degrees of value abroad? The simple answer is, "Of course they are! Why won't they be?" It may be simple to answer this question for anyone with any real knowledge/experience of this vast and beautiful content but it seem puzzling/shocking to see the word 'value' associated with Africa (or anything related to the continent). For Africa has become a place more common with hunger, diseases and war than anything else. The stereotypes of 'helplessness' of Africa continue to be perpetuated by the media especially in the West. This is not to suggest that hunger, diseases and war aren't part of Africa but the key word is 'part'. These unfortunate conditions do not sum up Africa in its entirety. With that in mind we move on to the question on hand.

To answer this question let's first look at the Africa education system and the students affected. In most African countries education costs for the public schools and universities are substantially cheaper compared to Western countries. This is of course due to the fact that the majority of the people have lower incomes. In fact in East African countries such as Kenya and Tanzania, education was free up to primary school (GCSE). The parents were responsible for school uniforms, stationeries and so on. These policies may have changed over the years, thanks partially to the governments feeling the strain of 'Unpayable debt' (commonly known as Third World Debt) the fees have remained reasonably low. The governments' restrained budgets against the countries growing populations have also complicated matters further, for most African countries. Thus African public schools today are not only overcrowded but also have very restricted facilities. This of course has a knock-on effect on the quality of education in Africa. It is true that for those African graduates in fields such as sciences, where lab practises are essential to performance the African student may be at a disadvantage.

This is not the case however due to primarily two factors. The first is the increase in private schools/universities. It was long recognized that there are many African students who missed a chance to contribute and make success of their lives simply because of the very high standards required by public education route. This is specifically the case at higher education levels including universities. Private schools were therefore born and have retained similar standards and at the same time provide education opportunities to many Africans.

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