H A R VA R D I N T E R N AT I O N A L R E V I E W
ENDING POVERTY IN AFRICA WITH ONLINE EDUCATION Eric Li Staff Writer
E
ducation plays a critical role in ending poverty. For example, the winners of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2019 Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo found that schooling increases earnings relatively linearly, in that each additional year of primary education adds about eight percent to earnings for a child: over the standard six years of primary schooling, income would increase for a child by about 50 percent. These
10 // S U M M E R
2020
gains are especially important in sub-Saharan Africa, which has the highest out-of-school rates for all ages; 33 million of the 61 million global out-of-school children live in the region. Despite the large benefits of widespread increased education, the logistics of education can be difficult. In an analysis of seven African countries, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) found that on the average school day, a fourth to a half of the teachers are ab-
sent, which results in a wasted school day for the students who do attend and lowers the actual effects of going to school. Moreover, barriers in attending school, such as fees, traveling time, and child morbidity, prevent out-of-school rates from decreasing. Online Education However, these roadblocks are not insurmountable. Online education has been on the rise in sub-Saharan Africa due to it
