Amidst Africa’s battle to enhance education access and quality, a recent report by the Tax and Education (TaxEd) Alliance sheds light on a distressing reality: about 19 million girls are missing from school classrooms across the continent, a situation exacerbated by an annual loss of US$29 billion in potential education funding due to tax evasion by corporations and wealthy individuals. The TaxEd Alliance’s findings underline the critical intersection of tax policy and education funding, suggesting that aggressive tax avoidance practices are significantly undermining efforts to achieve gender parity and universal education.
The report identifies an alarming number of children, approximately 38.9 million, who are out of school in Africa, with nearly half of them being girls, particularly those disadvantaged in poorer and rural communities. This stark disparity is not only a reflection of existing social and economic inequalities but also a testament to the challenges posed by inadequate public funding for education. The organisation points out that the high cost of schooling continues to be a prohibitive barrier for millions, denying them their fundamental right to education.
With the continent striving to meet the goals of the Continental Education Strategy for Africa 2016–25 and combat the educational setbacks induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, the report emphasizes the need for robust interventions. It calls on African governments to harness the potential of fair, gender-responsive taxation, which could generate an additional US$146 billion annually for the continent. Allocating just 20% of these funds to the education sector could sufficiently finance schooling for 25 million primary school children.
According to a report by Newsday, ActionAid Zimbabwe, echoing the report’s sentiments, highlighted the opportunity for African nations to significantly improve educational outcomes by addressing tax, debt, and austerity gaps. The organisation’s country director, Joy Mabenge, decried the grave situation of over 18 million girls deprived of education due to fiscal shortfalls, urging immediate governmental action to remedy this through effective tax policy reforms.
The TaxEd Alliance also draws attention to the compounded challenges faced by girls who experience multiple forms of discrimination, stressing the importance of targeted interventions to ensure their educational rights. Furthermore, the report calls for a dramatic increase in the recruitment and training of teachers across Africa, with an estimated 17 million new teachers required to achieve universal primary and secondary education by 2030.
As African nations grapple with these pressing issues, the TaxEd Alliance report serves as a critical call to action for policymakers, highlighting the transformative power of equitable tax policies in unlocking the continent’s educational potential and paving the way for a more inclusive and prosperous future.
