EAC AU Education Conference

• The East African region lacks a regional coalition amongst government and civil society to progress the education agenda in the region. East African governments have made efforts to improve education in their respective countries and across the region, but this still faces various barriers. On the other hand, CSOs and development partners are working to address issues specific to their agendas and areas of interest, with little collaboration across the region. This status quo is no longer sustainable as persisting challenges have reached crisis level. Against this context, this conference seeks to leverage the AU’s rally for transforming education on the continent, to call for collective, decisive, and strategic actions to tackle head-on the education challenges specific to the East African context.

The East African Community (EAC) recognises education, training, and science and technology as pivotal in the attainment of the development goals and aspirations of the region and in the attainment of the pillars of EAC’s integration agenda. In recognition of this, in Article 102 of the EAC Treaty, the Partner States committed to foster cooperation in education and training which has led to several developments. Inter alia, this process has led to the harmonization strategies for the various education cycles by the Partner States.

The AU Year of Education has inspired the EAC member states – in partnership with the Regional Education Learning Initiative (RELI-Africa), the People’s Action for Learning (PAL) Network, the Africa Curriculum Association (ACA), with the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) to organise a conference and a call to action towards achieving holistic learning for all children in the region. The EAC Regional conference is, therefore, a call for joint action and for “restlessness in reflecting on learning as a pressing social justice issue in the region”. Rather than be-labour challenges, the conference adopts a solution-focus, sharing innovations and evidence on what has worked in our context, with a strong call to commit for our children.

The theme of the EAC will be: “Educate an African fit for the 21st Century: Collective Action for Quality, Inclusive and Life-long Learning in East Africa”

The conference seeks to achieve five objectives:

1. To facilitate progressive dialogues on building Education systems that are equipped to respond to the full diversity of learners’ needs and deliver quality education to improve learning outcomes for each child in EAC.
2. To facilitate discussions on the best practices for implementation of evidence-based innovative, feasible, and sustainable solutions for Education transformation
3. To establish and inaugurate a regional network to strengthen the multi-sectoral partnerships for education in the East African Region.
4. To enhance clarity on, share responses, and commit to the children furthest behind in the EAC region.
5. To come up with concrete actions/ statements/ including sustainability of this conference in EAC.