Advancements in science and technology are pivotal to Africa’s growth trajectory in order to generate significant economic and human capital. In a time of great change such as now, the timeline of future technology largely promising and “the science community believes STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) is the greatest value to man”. Yet as the fastest-growing economic and population region of the world which is set to have almost half of the world’s children by 2050, Africa’s stem path is not so promising due to the poor nurturing of its young talent.[1]
Africa has not created a substantial strategic plan on STEM policies or even a clear structure for effective implementation. It is debatable whether some national leaders understand STEM or its significance. Today, Rwanda and South Africa are the only countries to have successfully looked at the subject of policies concerning the real implementation of STEM subjects in the continent’s education system. This is happening at a time where many nations are suffering from a slowing economy and declining revenue to provide enough schools and health facilities.
However, increasing efforts are being made to concentrate on STEM opportunities in the African sphere. One individual who is taking steps to reform the lag in African STEM is a Nigerian graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Obinna Ukwuani, who is set to build Africa’s first STEM school in Nigeria, called “Makers Academy”. According to Ukwuani, Nigeria’s biggest problem is that the country does not produce anything – ‘We import everything, and it comes back to education’. This initiative follows a Robotics summer school which Obinna organized to teach 113 boys and girls how to code and build robots. Over the next decade, African employers can expect to have many thousands of job openings requiring basic STEM literacy, and more people outside of these 113 young people will need advanced STEM knowledge; It will be home to 1 billion young people in 2050 that will need educating to unleash the boundless energy of talent and human creativity.
Benefits:
Most STEM jobs in Africa are performed by or outsourced to multinationals from China, India and the US. Training the future generation of African accountants, designers, engineers, mathematicians and scientists will not only provide business great business opportunities but hinge on further economic growth. Considering the exploitation of Africa’s minerals in Congo and Guinea, a clear STEM policy strategy could prove pivotal to giving Africa more leverage over the technology industry as we rely on key materials like Cobalt for our everyday gadgets.
By investing more in African scientists, diseases like Ebola may be prevented. The growing demand for better education will also boost productivity, employment opportunities and competitiveness and contribute to rising incomes, consumption, middle class and expansion.
If Africa invested more in its tech entrepreneurs, it would be easy to find African solutions to African issues instead of applying foreign knowledge to home projects; the way China and the U.S. are doing for Africa with hidden costs. Without solid STEM skills, the continent is losing out and governments are limited in their ability to invest in STEM for the future.
Promoting STEM in Africa
Looking ahead, governmental and non-governmental structures should be urged to commit to investing more in the nurturing of STEM education right down to the grassroots. Compared to two decades ago, there are more Universities across the continent focused on STEM. The Agbami parties which started collaborating in 2008 with Chevron have invested over 8.4billion (USD) in Nigeria on the Agbami Medical and Engineering Scholarship, (AMEPS). More efforts like this are needed to push investors to play a key role in the capacity building of medical and engineering courses.
Big Corporates must also wake up to the reality that the future of Africa is full of STEM opportunities. Powerhouses like Google and Johnson & Johnson are increasing their involvement in these economies and in turn providing much-needed jobs.[2] Africa needs support for STEM activities from other Corporates to encourage innovation across the continent.
More importantly, to unlock the vast level of potential, the attitudes and dialogue surrounding STEM will need to change as a matter of urgency. At the LSE Africa Summit in 2017, Ibukun Awosika (Chair, First Bank of Nigeria) spoke of the disproportionate number of students graduating from Accounting, Law and Economics in Nigeria in comparison to the jobs available in the Labour Market. Correspondingly, Mrs. Abolaji Osime the CEO, at Global International College and Secondary school states ‘Nigeria does not need graduates from the Arts sector but rather the science sector’. Like the Africa Summit, more dialogue should be encouraged between teachers and parents to advice parents to understand the benefit of STEM education, as opposed to “forcing children to study courses of their will’.
Ultimately, Africa must treat the fostering of STEM awareness as an urgent dilemma in order to be able to tap into the opportunities which will emerge out of the approaching tech-age.
[1] Yomi Kazeem (JUN 2017) More than half of the world’s population growth will be in Africa by 2050
https://qz.com/1016790/more-than-half-of-the-worlds-population-growth-will-be-in-africa-by-2050/
[2] Reuters (JUL 2017) Google hopes to train 10 million people in Africa in online skills: CEO
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-africa/google-hopes-to-train-10-million-people-in-africa-in-online-skills-ceo-idUSKBN1AC29W
Edited by Luke Doyle (BSc Economics and Economic History)
