Africa: Need to Address Shortage of Text Books in Sub-Sahara Africa

With teachers in most Sub-Saharan African countries being inadequately trained, one of the most cost effective inputs to quality education is making high quality learning materials available to students. This is more so given the fact that most classes in these countries are large and parents who could help out, are illiterate and most households do not have reading material.

A World Bank report on making textbooks available to every child in sub-Sahara Africa notes that textbooks provide significant impact at relatively modest cost. "Relatively small investments in textbooks and other learning and teaching material have a disproportionately large impact on achievement compared to marginal investments, for example, teachers".