Quality of education in Africa: Africa-Asia university dialogue for basic education development

This issue of the Journal of International Cooperation in Education is the first of two issues compiling the results of the “Africa-Asia University Dialogue for Basic Education Development” (“A-A Dialogue”) project. The “A-A Dialogue” project is a joint research endeavor by African and Asian universities to contribute to achieving the international commitment of “Education for All” (EFA). The first phase of this project was implemented from 2004 to 2007 in cooperation with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations University (UNU), and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) with the Center for the Study of International Cooperation in Education (CICE), Hiroshima University functioning as the secretariat. The primary regional focus of the project was placed on sub-Sahara Africa, because as indicated in the EFA Monitoring Reports in 2002 and 2007, while this region has made some progress, it still needs far more effort to achieve EFA goals. At the same time this project was based on the critical view about universities that while international cooperation in education has long been focused on basic education, universities, particularly those in Africa, seem to have limited say in the development of the education sector in general and basic education in particular. The basic idea of the project therefore was that being the apex of research and knowledge, universities should play a crucial role in influencing change and development of basic education through identifying the real and important issues of EFA and researching them, thus becoming able to suggest possible solutions.