fondation pour les études et recherches sur le développement international Feasibility Study 2019 Report Supporting Education in Africa: Opportunities & Challenges for an Impact Investor Francesca Marchetta is Assistant Professor at the CERDI- Université Clermont Auvergne. Her main area of research interest is human development, with special focus on economic migration, education, labor market and gender issues. Tom Dilly, Project officer in Education, at Investisseurs & Partenaires LA FERDI EST UNE FONDATION RECONNUE D’UTILITÉ PUBLIQUE. RECONNUE LA FERDI EST UNE FONDATION ET LA GOUVERNANCE MONDIALE (IDGM). POUR LE DÉVELOPPEMENT L’INITIATIVE L’IDDRI ELLE MET EN ŒUVRE AVEC CERDI ET À L’IDDRI. AU LE LABEX IDGM+ QUI L’ASSOCIE ELLE COORDONNE D’AVENIR» TITRE DU PROGRAMME «INVESTISSEMENTS AU L’ANR FRANCAIS GÉRÉE PAR A BÉNÉFICIÉ D’UNE AIDE DE L’ÉTAT CETTE PUBLICATION LA RÉFÉRENCE «ANR-10-LABX-14-01» PORTANT Acknowledgement We would like to thank the members of the study steering committee, Jean-Michel Severino, Emilie Debled, Patrick Guillaumont, Benedicte Schutz, Saida Abouid andEmilie Larese-Silvestre, who provided guidance and advisory throughout the conduct of this study. We thank Audrey-Anne De Ubeda, who provided excellent research assistance for the redaction of the part 1 of the Study. We also thank Fabienne Rouanet and Julie Geoffroy at Ferdi for technical assistance in the editing of this document. We are also grateful to Clémence Bourrin at I&P, who edited with talent the executive summary published in July 2019. The field studies were possible thanks to the precious help of Tewindé Ouedraogo in Burkina Faso, Marcelin Cisse and Bi Yoaun in Cote d’Ivoire, Aliu Aminu in Ghana, Mbolatiana Raharimanga in Madagascar and Saida Abouid in Morocco to whom we express our sincere gratitude. Our warmest thanks go to all the people who kindly accepted to discuss and share their experience with us during the last nine months. It is impossible to mention everybody here, but they are all named in the list of interviewees we provide as an annex of the Study. The views expressed in the Report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of FERDI, Investisseurs & Partenaires or the Monegasque Cooperation. The authors remain directly responsible for any errors or omissions. REPORT FERDI Supporting Education in Africa: Opportunities & Challenges for an Impact Investor 1 General Outline Acknowledgement 1 General Outline 2 Introduction 5 PART 1. Supporting education: insights from the academic literature 10 • Private Sector participation in education: the state of the debate 11 1. Definitions and statistics 11 2. Determinants of the private share 12 3. Advantages and risks related to the development of a strong private sector 13 • Good Practices in Education: a literature review 16 1. Introduction 16 2. Innovating teaching and strengthening effective learning at school 17 3. Early Childhood Development 23 4. Alleviating resource and credit constraints 27 5. Information programs and management strengthening programs 33 6. Vocational education and training 37 7. Higher education 41 • Conclusion 47 PART 2. The Education Challenges in Five African Countries 49 • Education challenges in Burkina Faso 50 1. Introduction 50 2. General organization of the national education system 50 3. General Analysis 51 4. Specific subsector achievements and challenges 55 5. The mobilization of the private sector in education 70 6. Policy context and regulation of private players in education 81 • Education challenges in Côte d’Ivoire 83 1. Introduction 83 2. General organization of the national education system 83 3. General Analysis 84 4. Specific subsector achievements and challenges. 89 5. The mobilization of the private sector in education 102 6. Policy context and the regulation of private players in education 111 • Education challenges in Ghana 113 1. Introduction 113 2. General organization of the national education system 114 3. General Analysis 115 REPORT FERDI Supporting Education in Africa: Opportunities & Challenges for an Impact Investor 2 4. Specific subsector achievements and challenges. 121 5. The mobilization of the private sector in education 136 6. Policy context and the regulation of private players in education 152 • Education challenges in Madagascar 154 1. Introduction 154 2. General organization of the national education system 155 3. General Analysis 157 4. Specific subsector achievements and challenges 159 5. The mobilization of the private sector in education 173 6. Policy context and regulation of private players in education 185 • Education challenges in Morocco 188 1. Introduction 188 2. General organization of the national education system 189 3. General Analysis 190 4. Specific subsectors achievements and challenges 193 5. The mobilisation of the private sector in education 211 6. Policy context and regulation of private players in education 217 PART 3. Investing in education for impact 219 • Private sector dynamics in African education and possible interventions for an impact investor 220 1. Pre-school education 220 2. Basic Education 223 3. Upper secondary and TVET 226 4. Higher education 227 5. Education technologies: a range of ancillary activities with strong impact potential 230 6. Conclusions 232 • The models of education businesses: analytical tools 233 1. Private education providers 233 2. Ancillary activities in education 245 • Models of African education businesses: 6 case studies 253 1. Enko Education, a pan-African network of premium schools 253 2. Institut Universitaire d’Abidjan: A Dynamic University in Côte d’Ivoire 259 3. Sayna: an early-stage standardized school 264 4. Institut Spécialisé en Technologie d’Art Dentaire (ISTD): a Neighborhood school 269 5. Practical Education Network (PEN): a teacher training project 273 6. Etudesk: an early-stage education technology company 278 PART 4. A mapping of private investments in education 282 1. Introduction and objectives 283 2. Mapping methodology 283 3. Emerging trends in the education financing sector 285 4. Key lessons from the education investment mapping 295 REPORT FERDI Supporting Education in Africa: Opportunities & Challenges for an Impact Investor 3 Conclusions and Recommendations 298 • General conclusions 298 • Recommendations to structure the impact and investment strategy 300 1. Impact strategy 300 2. Impact dimensions and indicators 301 3. Impact strategies: 4 ways to impact on education 303 4. Investment strategy 305 • Final recommendations and comments 310 1. Points of attention 310 2. Additional insights 311 3. Final conclusions 312 Detailed Outline 314 Annexe : List of people interviewed 319 References 324 REPORT FERDI Supporting Education in Africa: Opportunities & Challenges for an Impact Investor 4 Introduction Access, quality, and equity of education systems in developing countries, particularly in Africa, remain problematic, despite the renewed commitment of the United Nations in 2015 with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Goal No 4 "Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all", and Goal No 5 "Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”. Despite continent-wide progress over the past 10 years, the situation of the African education sector remains alarming in terms of access to education, especially for girls and rural populations, and in terms of the quality of learning, from pre-school to higher education. Since governments have only limited resources to deal with these different problems, the private sector is playing an increasingly important role. The mobilization of the private sector in the education challenges opens the way for impact investors to support this dynamic and assist private providers in establishing responsible and sustainable models of private education in Africa. Nevertheless, it seems that impact investors are not very active in this sector, and to our knowledge, there is no impact fund dedicated to the education sector with a pan- African scope. Investisseurs & Partenaires (I&P), an impact investment group dedicated to African Small and Medium Sized Businesses, is planning to launch an impact fund dedicated to the education and training sector on the African continent. The government of Monaco has decided to fund the launch phase of this new fund, including the present feasibility study. The Foundation for International Development Studies and Research (FERDI) joined the project to coordinate and supervise the production of this feasibility study. This document presents the results of the feasibility study that began in September 2018 and ended in May 2019. The main purpose of this study is to identify the opportunities and the challenges to creating an impact vehicle dedicated to education in the African context, taking into account the prerogatives of the public sector, one of whose missions is to implement universal education. This study aims to help I&P to define the investment strategy (types of businesses, instruments, risk profile, geographic scope, etc) and the impact strategy (goals, indicators, education cycles, etc) and to identify the key opportunities and risks in implementation. The study consists of 5 parts. Part 1 examines the existing literature in order to present the debate on private sector participation in education and to identify “good practices” in education that could eventually be developed and fostered by the private sector. Part 2 assesses the educational challenges and needs in Africa through an