The Quality of Health and Education Systems Across Africa
better-prepared teachers, better-managed schools, and incentives that are aligned across the many stakeholders in education reform. Although it will take time to stabilize education systems, this book has summarized some of the areas most in need of rebuilding and rehabilitation. High-quality primary education is one of the best investments that countries can make to drive productivity gains and economic growth. Ensuring student learning across the whole population should remain a high priority as governments rebuild after COVID-19. Moving forward, digital technology will play an even more important role in both education and health. The efforts that countries have made in providing continuity with remote learning during the pandemic could carry benefits beyond the current emergency. Appropriately structured online learning can facilitate the acquisition of competencies essential in the changing world of work, such as collaboration and higher-order cognitive skills (Reimers and Schleicher 2020). To shape resilient education systems, countries will need to draw lessons from worldwide experience with distance learning and expand the infrastructure for online and remote learning. In health, telemedicine can, in some cases, help to increase access to higher-quality care in an efficient manner. Finally, in the process of moving toward digital solutions, governments should consider specific disadvantages that some groups face in accessing online platforms, such as gender and disability gaps in access to and use of technology.
SDI surveys: Turning measurement into momentum for reform Measurement is essential to motivate and guide reforms in health and education, the core pillars of human capital. SDI surveys provide clear, actionable indicators that highlight where health and education systems function well and where fixes are needed. The surveys can help to prioritize reform steps and track the effects of reforms in health and education over time. They also pinpoint areas of reform in governance and accountability that apply to both sectors. Perhaps most important, SDI results can motivate change by offering an open and transparent assessment of system performance that policy makers and citizens alike can understand. Although reforms often come from the top down, the SDI surveys are premised on the conviction that change can be driven from the bottom up, by engaging citizens to demand high-quality services. The results presented here can function as a call for change in many countries.
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