CESA 16-25: What Africa's 10-Year Education Strategy Achieved — and What Must Come Next
The Continental Education Strategy for Africa is approaching the end of its first decade. The AU's own assessment reveals genuine progress alongside persistent failure — and the review process now underway to draft CESA 26-35 will shape African education policy for a generation.
The Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA 16-25) was adopted in 2015 as the African Union's 10-year framework for transforming education across the continent's 54 member states. Its mission: to reorient Africa's education and training to meet the knowledge, skills, innovation, and creativity required to nurture African core values and promote sustainable development — to create, in the AU's formulation, "education for wealth" rather than education for credentials.
As CESA 16-25 approaches its end point, the African Union has undertaken a comprehensive review — assessing what was achieved, what was missed, and what the evidence demands for the next iteration of continental education strategy (CESA 26-35, which will guide policy through 2035). This review provides the most honest and comprehensive assessment of African education progress available — and its findings have direct implications for every school, educator, and family on the continent.
What CESA 16-25 Actually Achieved
The AU's own assessment of CESA 16-25 achievements is substantive. Despite the persistence of the learning crisis, genuine progress was made across multiple dimensions:
Increased access to education
School enrolment rates increased across multiple African countries during the CESA period, with more children entering formal education than ever before. Primary enrolment gains have been particularly significant in several East and West African countries.
Improved education quality frameworks
Teacher training standards, curriculum frameworks, and quality assurance systems were strengthened across multiple member states, even where implementation remains incomplete. The frameworks for quality are now clearer than they were in 2015.
TVET promotion and vocational skills development
Technical and vocational education received increased policy attention and investment during the CESA period, with the African Skills Week and the Better Education for Africa's Rise (BEAR III) project creating continental momentum around skills-based education.
Greater regional cooperation
CESA fostered meaningful sharing of best practices, resources, and experiences between countries — particularly through the 12 thematic cluster mechanisms that organised stakeholder engagement around each strategic objective.
ICT and digital education integration
Digital education received significant policy and investment attention during the CESA period. Multiple member states launched EdTech initiatives, and the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated digital learning adoption in ways that have had lasting impact on how digital tools are viewed in African education systems.
Gender equality advancement
Girls' education received sustained attention, with improved retention rates in several countries, reduced gender gaps in enrolment, and the development of frameworks specifically addressing girls' education, health, and protection in learning environments.
Education investment advocacy
CESA played a significant role in maintaining education as a priority for domestic government budgets and international development partner investment, helping sustain financing flows even during fiscal pressures.
The Four Questions Guiding the CESA Review
The review process underway is being guided by four research questions that reveal the depth of honest self-assessment the AU is conducting:
- To what extent have the strategic objectives been achieved? What is the evidence for outcomes achieved? What have been the successes, challenges, gaps, and missed opportunities?
- How effective have the Cluster mechanisms been? The 12 thematic clusters were CESA's primary implementation mechanism. Have they delivered on their promise as stakeholder engagement platforms, and how can they be strengthened?
- How well have member states adapted CESA into national strategies? Continental frameworks only matter if they shape national policy — to what extent did CESA actually influence national education sector plans?
- What recommendations should inform CESA 26-35? The review's ultimate purpose is improving the next strategy based on honest evidence from the current one.
The Cluster Mechanism: An Innovative but Underutilised Model
One of CESA's most innovative features was its cluster mechanism — 12 thematic groups, each focused on one of the 12 strategic objectives, that organised stakeholder engagement around specific education themes. The clusters brought together member states, regional economic communities, civil society organisations, development partners, and the private sector to jointly develop initiatives, share experience, and hold each other accountable.
The AU review is examining honestly whether these clusters achieved their potential. The vision was compelling: institutional platforms for high-level engagement, multi-sectoral approaches, strategic initiative development, and transparent accountability among stakeholders. The reality in many clusters has been more modest — participation has been uneven, accountability mechanisms have been weak, and the translation from continental cluster activities to national-level implementation has often been limited.
CESA 26-35 is expected to strengthen these mechanisms based on what the review reveals about why some clusters worked better than others.
What the 2024 Theme Implementation Revealed
The AU's 2024 "Year of Education" theme — Educate an African Fit for the 21st Century — generated a substantial programme of activities that provides a real-world test case for what continental education mobilisation can achieve. The AU's review of these activities reveals both the breadth of what is possible and the limitations of what continental-level action can deliver:
| Theme Area | Key Activity | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| Teaching profession | Continental Conference on teaching reform; AU Strategy on Teacher Mental Health | Established continental standards and support frameworks for teachers |
| STEM and foundational learning | Launch of Spotlight Report on Foundational Learning; Early Childhood Conference | Elevated reading and numeracy as the continent's most urgent learning priority |
| African History | General History Symposium on Teaching African History | Addressed the curriculum relevance gap around African content |
| TVET | Bridging Innovation and Learning in TVET; Africa Skills Week 2024 | Strengthened skills-economy linkages and TVET visibility |
| Digital Education | Call for Innovative Education in Africa 2024 | Mobilised EdTech stakeholders toward CESA digital objectives |
| Girls' education | 1st Pan African Conference on Girls' Education | Established dedicated continental platform for girls' education advocacy |
| Resource mobilisation | Multiple roundtable consultations with development partners | Maintained education financing as priority amid global fiscal pressures |
What CESA 26-35 Must Address
The most important output of the current review will be the strategic recommendations that shape CESA 26-35 — the framework that will guide African education policy from 2026 to 2035. Based on the evidence from the CESA 16-25 period, several priorities stand out as essential for the next strategy:
Learning outcomes — not just enrolment: The most important single shift CESA 26-35 must make is from measuring success through enrolment and access metrics to measuring it through actual learning outcomes. Children in school but not learning are being failed just as surely as children out of school.
Foundational literacy and numeracy as the non-negotiable priority: The 90% learning poverty rate in sub-Saharan Africa demands that foundational reading and mathematics skills in the first four years of school become the overriding priority of every national education system, with all other objectives conditional on achieving this foundation.
Teacher quality as the central lever: No education improvement programme has ever succeeded without improving the quality of teaching. CESA 26-35 must place teacher recruitment, training, compensation, support, and retention at the absolute centre of its strategy.
Digital education as infrastructure: ICT in education must be treated not as an add-on but as fundamental infrastructure — with the same policy priority and investment framework as physical school construction.
Deeper national implementation: Continental strategies that do not translate into national policy change achieve little. CESA 26-35 must include much stronger mechanisms for member state accountability and implementation support.
The drafting process for CESA 26-35 includes a taskforce from AU Member States and RECs providing guidance, a dedicated drafting team, and a validation exercise with stakeholder feedback. The process is designed to produce a strategy that aligns with AU Agenda 2063, the Sustainable Development Goals, and the lessons learned from a decade of CESA 16-25 implementation. More information: au.int