Approaches to Strengthening Secondary STEM & ICT Education in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper is based on a predominately desk-based literature review on national policy frameworks, specifically targeting STEM and ICT education in sub-Saharan Africa. Two country scoping exercises were conducted in Zambia and in South Africa which provided additional grey literature and data from interviews with a range of stakeholders from policymakers to students. This is intended as a forward-looking and policy-oriented paper, tol assist the MasterCard Foundation, policy makers and the international development community in implementing high quality secondary STEM and ICT education in sub-Saharan Africa, targeting disadvantaged learners in difficult delivery contexts. The specific objectives are:- To better understand the characteristics of successful national policy frameworks for increasing access for disadvantages groups of learners, including girls, learners from poor socio-economic backgrounds and speakers of minority languages, to good quality STEM and ICT in secondary education.- To identify successful strategies used to address the data gap of student performance, teacher ability and school level resources available for STEM and ICT education.- To develop a diagnostic framework enabling policy makers to analyse their particular context and identify pressure points in the system, where targeted intervention could be particularly helpful