School access and gender parity in Sub-Saharan Africa: Through the lens of GEFRI

Education is one of the most powerful levers for social progress and economic development. Yet across Sub-Saharan Africa, access to schooling and the achievement of gender parity remain elusive. The Global Education Futures Readiness Index (GEFRI) provides a comparative framework to assess how well countries are to meet the challenges and opportunities of education in a rapidly changing world. Among its core dimensions, School Access and Gender Parity emerges as the area where Sub-Saharan Africa falls farthest behind.

The School Access and Gender Parity dimension evaluates the extent to which education is accessible and inclusive, with a focus on gender parity and out-of-school rates. Access to education systems unlock the potential of all learners, regardless of gender or background, and foster social cohesion and justice. By tracking disparities, GEFRI highlights where barriers remain and where progress is being made toward the goal of education for all. (Note: Future releases of GEFRI will expand this dimension to include additional equity-focused indicators.)

This analysis investigates the factors behind these low scores, identifying the systemic mechanisms that prevent children and adolescents from attending school. It proposes a shift in policy thinking, moving beyond conventional agendas to highlight what must be done differently for the region to achieve meaningful progress. The intent is to provide a grounded account that connects data with context and outlines realistic, systemic, and sustainable pathways for change.

The GEFRI framework

GEFRI’s School Access and Gender Parity dimension is based on six indicators that together capture access, equity, and progression:

• Secondary GPI (gross enrollment ratio, female/male)
• Tertiary GPI (gross enrollment ratio, female/male)
• Children out of school, primary (% of primary age)
• Adolescents out of school, lower secondary (% of lower-secondary age)
• Lower secondary completion rate, female (% of relevant age group)
• Lower secondary completion rate, male (% of relevant age group)

These indicators measure whether children are entering and completing schooling, and whether girls and boys are progressing at similar rates. They also highlight the critical transition from primary to lower secondary, which is the point at which many adolescents leave school. Together, they provide a clear picture of equity and access across the region.

What the data show

The GEFRI dataset produced in August 2025 places Sub-Saharan Africa at the bottom of the global distribution. The regional average for School Access and Gender Parity is 18.3 on a normalized 100-point scale. Of the 48 countries included, 37 sit at the minimum value of 10. Even the best performers, such as Seychelles and Mauritius, achieve scores in the 70s, which remain below global leaders in Europe and North America.

School access and gender parity regional averages

The distribution reveals both widespread deprivation and sharp inequality. A handful of small island states and upper-middle-income countries in Southern Africa achieve relatively higher access and completion, while most of the region languishes at the floor. The data also show that access and parity correlate strongly with broader system performance: the correlation with GEFRI’s composite score is 0.87, with Infrastructure 0.72, with Human Capital 0.70, and with Governance 0.59. Innovation has a weaker link at 0.29, underscoring that technology cannot compensate for gaps in basic provision and governance.

The implication is clear: education outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa are constrained not only by the lack of resources but by the fragility and unreliability of systems themselves. The challenge is not confined to gender parity or enrollment ratios but extends to the way entire systems operate.

Structural mechanisms behind low scores

The six School Access and Gender Parity indicators capture different aspects of access and equity in each country’s GEFRI profile, but they converge on a single reality: education systems in much of Sub-Saharan Africa struggle to provide sustained and equitable participation. The causes are structural and interconnected, and they align with what qualitative evidence has long shown about the region.

1. Geographic and demographic barriers
   Populations are dispersed across vast rural areas. Lower-secondary schools are concentrated in towns and cities, leaving many rural communities without nearby options. Long journeys to school are costly and unsafe, especially for girls. Families make rational decisions to keep children, and particularly daughters, at home rather than expose them to risk. This barrier explains why transition rates from primary to lower secondary remain low across the region.
2. Infrastructure and service gaps
   Even when schools exist, they often lack the resources to function effectively. Classrooms are overcrowded, electricity is inconsistent, and textbooks are scarce. Many schools do not have water or sanitation facilities. For adolescent girls, the absence of private toilets leads to absenteeism and eventual dropout. Teachers are in short supply and are more likely to be deployed to urban schools, leaving rural areas underserved. Absenteeism and delayed salary payments compound the problem. These service gaps limit both access and completion.
3. Poverty and household economics
   Widespread poverty shapes education decisions. Fee abolition expanded enrollment in the early 2000s, but hidden costs remain. Uniforms, examination fees, and contributions to school committees place pressure on households. The opportunity costs are even greater: children are needed for farm work, domestic responsibilities, or wage labor. When households face economic shocks, schooling is often the first to be sacrificed. Climate events, conflict, and volatile food prices all intensify these pressures. Boys may leave to work, while girls are withdrawn for domestic work or marriage.
4. Gender norms and social practices
   Social norms continue to undervalue girls’ education. Early marriage and adolescent pregnancy remain common in the Sahel, Central Africa, and other contexts. Even when legal frameworks prohibit child marriage, enforcement is weak. Re-entry policies for young mothers are limited. Girls who attend school may face harassment, violence, or discriminatory expectations. Boys, while more likely to remain in school at lower levels, often leave at adolescence to work, reflecting different but equally constraining social pressures. Gender parity ratios capture the imbalance, but they do not capture the lived inequities that shape daily experience in schools.
5. Conflict and fragility
   Conflict remains one of the strongest determinants of low access. In countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Chad, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, schools have been closed, attacked, or occupied by armed groups. Teachers flee violence, and displacement disrupts education for millions of children. In such contexts, education systems collapse and indicators fall to the lowest levels. The gendered impact is stark: girls are exposed to early marriage and exploitation, while boys may be recruited by armed groups.
6. Language of instruction and pedagogy
   In many countries, the language of instruction differs from the language spoken at home. Children who do not understand the language of instruction are more likely to repeat grades and drop out. Rote-based pedagogy and high-stakes examinations exacerbate the problem, leading to weak learning outcomes. Parents who perceive schooling as irrelevant to economic opportunity are less likely to keep children enrolled. Weak foundations in the early grades therefore limit progression at higher levels.
7. Systemic underinvestment and governance
   Education budgets are volatile and dependent on commodity prices or donor funding. Funds are often misallocated or delayed. Teacher salaries may go unpaid for months. Construction projects are frequently underfunded or abandoned. Governance weaknesses undermine trust in public education. Families that perceive schools as unreliable are reluctant to invest scarce household resources in sending children. The result is a cycle of low trust, low investment, and low participation.

Regional clusters and variation

Despite the overall low performance, Sub-Saharan Africa is not homogenous. Different sub-regions and country clusters demonstrate distinct patterns.

Small island states such as Seychelles, Mauritius, and Cabo Verde perform better due to smaller populations, denser networks of schools, and more predictable public spending. Southern African countries such as Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa show higher completion rates, though inequality remains pronounced between urban and rural populations.

Reform-driven countries like Ghana, Kenya, and Côte d’Ivoire have improved primary access but struggle with transition to secondary. Here the bottleneck lies in lower-secondary supply and the conditions of learning.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Sahel and parts of Central Africa represent the fragility belt, where conflict, displacement, and social practices converge to produce the lowest scores. In these contexts, every GEFRI indicator is affected simultaneously, and progress is extremely difficult without broader political stability.

Resource-rich states such as Equatorial Guinea and Gabon demonstrate that revenue alone is insufficient. Equatorial Guinea achieves better results due to its small population, while Gabon underperforms relative to its income level due to governance challenges and inequality.

What needs to change

The GEFRI results suggest that current approaches are not enough. For decades, the focus has been on expanding enrollment, abolishing fees, and promoting gender parity. These steps have produced some gains, but they have not shifted the trajectory. If Sub-Saharan Africa continues on this path, millions of children will remain excluded, and gender inequities will persist. The question is not what to do more of, but what to do differently.

1. From enrollment to sustained participation
   Enrollment drives have expanded access but have not ensured that children remain in school. The priority must shift to sustained participation and progression. Monitoring systems need to track learners through the cycle, with interventions targeted to those at risk of leaving. Success should be measured by completion and transition, not by initial enrollment figures.
2. From school supply to system reliability
   School construction and teacher recruitment are necessary but insufficient. Families respond not to promises of schooling but to the reliability of systems. Reliability means schools that are open consistently, teachers who are paid on time, materials that are available, and instruction that builds relevant skills. Without reliability, families will continue to withdraw children, regardless of the number of schools built.
3. From parity ratios to practiced equity
   Gender parity has often been reduced to numerical ratios. Yet girls may be in school without being safe, respected, or encouraged to aspire. Policies must address the lived experience of schooling: protection from harassment, adequate sanitation, pathways to higher education and labor markets, and expectations that girls can succeed. Parity without equity is insufficient.
4. From projects to resilient systems
   Many improvements have been achieved through donor projects or temporary programs. When funding ends, the benefits disappear. Progress requires resilient systems that can withstand shocks (economic, climatic, or political). This means stable financing, decentralized accountability, and community engagement. Without resilience, systems will continue to collapse under pressure.
5. From sectoral programs to a new social contract
   Education cannot be treated solely as a technical sector. Families decide whether to send children to school based on their trust in education as a pathway to opportunity. When curricula are irrelevant to labor markets, when corruption is visible, or when schools appear unsafe, trust collapses. Restoring education as part of the social contract requires aligning schooling with economic opportunity, ensuring transparent governance, and demonstrating that education delivers tangible returns.

These GEFRI scores confirm that Sub-Saharan Africa faces the greatest global challenge in achieving school access and gender parity. The problem is not limited to infrastructure gaps or gender ratios. It is a systemic crisis rooted in poverty, fragility, governance weaknesses, and social norms. These structural barriers reinforce one another and produce persistently low outcomes across all six indicators.

Progress will require doing things differently. It is not enough to build more schools or run new enrollment campaigns. The focus must shift to sustained participation, reliable systems, lived equity, resilient institutions, and renewed social trust in education. These shifts represent a departure from the current agenda, but they are essential if the region is to move from stagnation to progress.

The pathway forward is challenging, but not impossible. Countries such as Seychelles, Mauritius, and Botswana demonstrate that improvement is possible under the right conditions. The task for the region is to translate these lessons into systemic change that reaches the millions of children still left behind. GEFRI provides the evidence; the challenge now is to act differently, with a sharper focus on reliability, resilience, and equity.

Learn more

• About GEFRI
• GEFRI Methodology