Evidence Based Programming In Improved Quality Of Education To Children In The Developing World: A Review Of Selected Documentation In Africa 

Solomon Nzyuko, (PhD), Daystar Univerity Kenya.

Abstract

This paper sought to explore the institutional commitment to the welfare of children to access quality education as a basic right and hence let the sector work in the best interest of the child. Its scope covered the linkages between quality education as an inalienable right to the child, increased enrolment, life transformation, sustainable development and the role of monitoring and evaluation in the promotion of evidence-based management of the sector. This paper therefore delved into the prevalent practices in sub-Saharan Africa with the intent to bring to the fore the extent to which evidence-based planning might have been used to influence practice in delivering education as an indispensable nurturing service to the child. It is a desk review paper spanning the predominant practices reflecting on cases drawn from a number of selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa. It is noted that every civilization tends to be in a perpetual quest for its preservation through inherent procreative endeavour and hence in zest embrace deliberate nurturing systems, structures and processes for its posterity and legacy. One of the pivotal pillars in propelling a people into their appropriate, enviable socio-economic growth and development in pursuit of their preferred civilization is formal education to its budding population, the children. Persons who acquire ample art and science of learning availed through formal education also broaden their prospects for better living. Nevertheless, the pursuit of knowledge, skill and capacity enhancement in a large proportion of the less developed nations of the sub-Saharan Africa is obscure, rudimental and inaccessible to the majority of children in both the urban and rural poor. Similarly, the quality of education is too basic to make a difference in the lives of the millions of the affected children. Equally perturbing is the absence of evidence-based education sector management where results from monitoring and evaluation exercise does not seem to inform policy and practice. Such gaps may often push the stakeholders into a state of disillusionment and apathy which denies the child quality education, which is a right for all children.

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