The Success of Apprenticeships

20Training African Managers and Combating the “Brain Drain”

20.1. Introduction

With a continent in complete transformation, Africa has made considerable progress in terms of enrolment in primary and lower secondary classes. Nevertheless, “nearly 50 million children remain out of school and most of those who attend school do not acquire the basic skills needed to succeed in life”. According to a World Bank report (2018), Africa is facing a “serious learning crisis” that is undermining its economic growth and affecting the well-being of its population. Moreover, a study by the International Institute for Educational Planning (2016) shows that it is necessary “to ensure access for all to quality education on an equal footing and to promote lifelong learning opportunities”. But teacher shortages are a major barrier to the acquisition of the basic knowledge and “social” skills that students are expected to acquire in school, the same skills that will guide them throughout their lives.

It is obvious, without plagiarizing Bourdieu, that the environment plays a predominant role in the predestination of individuals and, in Africa, this is all the more true since there are only few alternative solutions, apart from denominational schools that do not always have as their goal the development of appropriate behaviors and postures in the business world.

With about 1,650 institutions that are too often in difficulty, higher education is also in a complicated situation. Too often, without ...