New Delhi, May 16 (IANS) India has emerged as a significant partner in Africa’s education sector, not merely through rhetoric but with functioning institutions and active programmes across the continent.

The long-running Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation programme (ITEC) has provided training to several African professionals, while the Indian government initiatives such as e-VidyaBharati and e-ArogyaBharati (e-VBAB) have expanded online education and telemedicine, a report said on Saturday.

Writing for India Narrative, Chukwudi Okeke, co-founder of Nigeria Innovation Hub in Lagos, said that these platforms are aimed at providing African learners access to Indian universities, diploma and certificate courses, and scholarships, with the e-VBAB project planning to offer 15,000 scholarships to students from Africa.

“Africa’s education and skills challenge is not a side issue; it is the hinge on which the continent’s economic future turns. The opportunity is enormous, because Africa’s young population can become its greatest asset only if classrooms, training centres, and labour markets are better connected to real jobs. Across Africa, the problem is not simply access to school but whether learning leads to employable skills,” Okeke stated.

Citing Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) findings, he said that more than 80 per cent of African youths in school aspire to high-skilled jobs, but only 8 per cent eventually obtain such jobs. He added that every additional year of education can boost earnings upto 11.4 per cent.

Okeke noted that UNESCO has also stressed the need to transform learning and skills development to make them more “effective, equitable, and responsive to economic and social needs”.

“That is why education policy in Africa must look beyond enrolment numbers. It must improve teacher quality, expand technical and vocational education, strengthen digital training, and make skills systems match local industries such as agrifood, mining, renewable energy, and digital services,” he wrote in India Narrative.

Referring to India’s tele-education outreach in Africa, Okeke said that the e-VBAB model enables students to access Indian courses without leaving home, thereby reducing cost barriers and expanding participation among learners balancing family or work responsibilities.

In countries where higher education is scarce or expensive, he said, this remote form of learning can be the difference between “exclusion and advancement”.

Emphasising India’s growing role as a developmental partner for Africa, Okeke said, “The real opportunity is to make education and skills development in Africa a continent-wide engine of confidence. If Africa supplies the ambition and India supplies practical cooperation, the result could be one of the most important development partnerships of this century.

–IANS

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