Most African governments have consistently failed to meet global and regional education funding targets to ensure quality public education, Human Rights Watch said today on the African Union’s Day of the African Child.
The 2025 theme for the day is “planning and budgeting for children’s rights: progress since 2010.” However, based on national data reported to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), only one-third of African countries met globally endorsed education funding benchmarks for annual average spending over the decade 2013 to 2023. The figure declined to just one quarter of countries by 2022 and 2023. Fourteen African countries did not meet any of the benchmarks a single year over the past decade.
“African heads of state and governments and the African Union have all made bold commitments for national investment in education,” said Mausi Segun, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “But governments are not translating those commitments into sustained funding, and many have actually reduced spending levels in recent years.”
Insufficient public spending on education undermines African governments’ legal obligations to guarantee free and compulsory quality primary education and make secondary education available, accessible, and free for every child. It also undermines their political commitments to AU and international development goals and benchmarks. Under the UN Sustainable Development Goals, in addition to providing at least one year of pre-primary education, African governments are required to ensure that all children complete free secondary education by 2030.
In 2015, UNESCO member states, including all 54 African states, agreed to increase education spending to at least 4 to 6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and/or at least 15 to 20 percent of total public expenditure. These internationally agreed funding benchmarks for education have been included in at least five global or AU-led declarations or action plans, including the 2015 Incheon Declaration, endorsed by all UNESCO member states; the Heads of State (“Kenyatta”) Declaration on Education Financing, endorsed by 17 African heads of state and governments and ministers; the 2021 Paris Declaration and “Global Call for Investing in the Futures of Education”; and the 2024 Fortaleza Declaration. In December 2024, the AU and African heads of state and governments expanded the upper end of the GDP benchmark from six to seven percent through the Nouakchott Declaration.
UNESCO member states have made additional commitments to invest at least 10 percent of education expenditures to guarantee at least one year of free and compulsory pre-primary education by 2030. In 2024, African countries agreed to ensure that an increased share of public funding is allocated to early childhood education.
Despite these obligations and global commitments, governments have failed to remove tuition and other school fees, particularly at the pre-primary and secondary level, leading to unequal access, retention, and poor quality in schools, with disproportionate impact on children from the poorest households. Families across Africa continue to shoulder an enormous burden in funding education, absorbing 27 percent of total education spending, according to World Bank 2021 data.
Africa has the highest out-of-school rates in the world, with over 100 million children and adolescents estimated to be out of school across all sub-regions except North Africa. Out-of-school rates have increased since 2015 for reasons including population increases, persistent gender gaps, the cumulative effects of Covid-19 school closures, climate emergencies, and conflicts.
Many children also drop out due to school-related gender-based violence, as well as discriminatory and exclusionary measures against pregnant and parenting girls, refugees, and children with disabilities, among other negative practices.
Only 14 countries guarantee free access to education, from at least one year of pre-primary through secondary education, based on available UNESCO data and Human Rights Watch research. Only 21 guarantee free access to 12 years of primary and secondary education, while 6 legally guarantee access to at least one year of free pre-primary education.
Human Rights Watch found that Morocco, excluding Western Sahara territory that it occupies, Namibia, and Sierra Leone are the only three African countries that both legally guarantee universally free access to primary and secondary education and at least one year of free pre-primary, and that have met both international education funding benchmarks in the last decade.
Many African countries continue to underinvest in public education to manage climate-related emergencies and conflict-related crises, but this is also due to political decisions and economic policies. Numerous African governments are applying regressive austerity measures to service debt interests and repayments. Fifteen are spending more on debt servicing than on education, leading to drastic cuts to teachers’ incomes, shortages of learning materials, and overcrowded classrooms. Creditor governments and institutions should consider debt restructuring or relief to ensure that debtor governments can adequately protect rights, including the right to education.
In a positive development, Sierra Leone currently co-leads an initiative at the UN Human Rights Council to develop a new optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, with the aim of recognizing that every child has a right to early childhood care and education and guaranteeing that states make public pre-primary education and secondary education available and free to all. Botswana, Burundi, Gambia, Ghana, Malawi, South Africa, and South Sudan have publicly expressed support for this process.
“African governments should urgently fulfill their pledges to guarantee universal access to free quality primary and secondary education,” Segun said. “Governments should focus on protecting public spending for education from regressive measures and cuts and allocate resources commensurate with their obligations to guarantee access to quality public education.”
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Human Rights Watch (HRW).
