The preparation process of the Triennial of 2011, held in Tunis from 6 to 9 September 2010 organized a series of consultations in connection with GreenYouth of Cameroon. A youth consultation is currently underway to enable thetriennial gives voice to the network of young leaders voices.

The Youth Consultation on the reform

We have undertaken an initiative of an African youth consultation with ADEA (The Association for the Development of Education in Africa) in preparation of the Triennale meeting that will take place in December 2011 in Ouagadougou.  The Triennale will bring together Ministers of Education as well as other Ministries and stakeholders will meet to discuss reforms for the education system in Africa. The African youth need to be involved and will contribute to the Triennale through the contribution of a youth position paper. I would like to invite you to contribute to the project. We are preparing for a youth forum in October 2011.  We are carrying out a survey of African youth through the distribution and analysis of questionnaires. We  need to collect a total of 15 completed surveys by different groups of young people from different African countries in each country: 3 questionnaires for youth enrolled in school; 3 questionnaires from out of school youth; 3 questionnaires of young entrepreneurs; 3   questionnaires from young women; and 3 questionnaires from youth educators or consultants. The questionnaire is both in French and English.  I therefore request your help in filling out and sharing the questionnaire with other youth in your country.  We need your support to ensure the success of the youth forum and want to share your voices!

The preparatory process for the 2011 Triennale: Thoughts and proposals

The 2011 ADEA Triennale, to be held in Ouagadougou in December 2011, will be a major event in the dialogue on education and training among all African countries. As indicated by the theme chosen for the Triennale, the objective is to design and build systems and mechanisms for acquisition of critical knowledge, skills and qualifications that will enable Africa to meet the challenges of its future development. The Triennale defines this as sustainable development, that is, a development process in which economic growth is closely linked to conservation of natural resources, building an inclusive society and instilling values of solidarity and peace among its people.

To achieve the objectives set for the Triennale, the preparation process will have to seek maximum involvement of all stakeholders concerned. These include not only the national, sub-regional and regional officials responsible for education and training policies but also economic, business and civil society stakeholders concerned by the formulation, implementation and monitoring of these policies. They also include civil society organizations, which are increasingly involved, in conjunction with public and private partners, in the development of mechanisms and streams for acquisition of knowledge, skills and qualifications. For all of these reasons, ADEA decided that the process of preparation for Ouagadougou 2011 would be a dynamic process facilitating to the greatest extent possible the active participation of all stakeholders concerned. This process may be defined in accordance with the following main lines.

The pivotal role of the Inter-Country Quality Nodes

The Inter-Country Quality Nodes (ICQNs) being launched by ADEA are intended to serve as catalysts for the accumulation of information on innovative education and training experiences in Africa and for the application of the lessons learned from these experiences by each country or group of countries to improve their strategic and operational policies in this area.

Several ICQNs have already been launched as a result of the Triennale preparation process:

• The ICQN on Peace Education. Lead country: Kenya. The aim, according to the Mombasa Declaration, is “to use education systems as tools and levers for reconstruction, conflict prevention, conflict settlement and nation-building”. At its launch in September 2009, the ICQN adopted the objective of sharing experiences and resources in the field of peace education. The aim is to help fragile states to design and deploy education services for purposes of conflict prevention andresoultion. At the Triennale, the ICQN will report on national frameworks that have been developed to strengthen national cohesion and peaceful coexistence within a given country.
• The ICQN on Technical and Vocational Skills Development. Lead country: Côte d’Ivoire. The first meeting of the ICQN, held from 19 to 21 July 2010, brought together high-level political, economic and business leaders from 20 Francophone, Anglophone and Lusophone countries. The conclusions adopted at the meeting committed all the participants to use all necessary means (including joint studies, technical support and inter-country working groups) to extend and study in greater detail the themes identified by the ICQN members as common challenges. The studies being initiated will involve extensive work by the experts of the ICQN member countries and will be validated by ministers and economic and business partners. They will underpin the commitment that the ICQN will make in Ouagadougou to make training and vocational skills for all Africans, particularly the young, a strategic and operational priority for the entire continent.
• The ICQN on Bilingual Education and Teaching Languages. Lead country: Burkina Faso. This ICQN brings together countries characterized by either de facto bilingualism or multiple official and non-official languages. It considers ways of turning such bilingualism and multilingualism into an opportunity to acquire and reinforce education and training.

Other ICQNs are being launched, reactivated or planned. They will undertake inter-country research on the following themes: reformulation of curricula, overhaul of teaching methods and capacity building for teachers, enhanced female participation in education, specialized provision for population groups in difficulty, adaptation of education to the rural environment, and literacy training through the use of local languages.

Sub-regional consultations

It is becoming increasingly apparent that regional African organizations such as the African Union (AU), the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) are developing their own approaches to education and training. The consultation process in preparation for the Triennale will take all of these approaches into account and will, if necessary, schedule ad hoc meetings in order to obtain more comprehensive information on the processes under way at the sub-regional and regional levels. For example, ADEA will support the implementation of the consultation framework on employment and training established by and between the WAEMU countries and Cape Verde at the Bamako conference of April 2010. On the basis of the sub-regional cooperation process thereby created, ADEA will seek to analyze and strengthen the linkages between technical and vocational skills development and the labor market.

Consultations with stakeholder networks

To design and build efficient education and training systems that can help both young people and adults acquire the critical knowledge, skills and qualifications they need to succeed in their personal and working lives and to participate in the collective drive for sustainable development, it is indispensable to have the active participation of all stakeholders concerned. It is thus important that the preparations for the Triennale take account of the analyses, experience and informed judgments of all the networks of organizations working in the fields of education and training. These include:

• associations of young African leaders;
• associations of young entrepreneurs and business leaders;
• African diaspora associations in the Western business world;
• employers’ organizations (inter-industry confederations, sector federations, consular chambers or trade guilds);
• organizations representing employees of the formal or informal sectors or any groups of working people engaged in vocational training and qualification activities;
• national youth councils and other youth associations whose objectives include that of ensuring capacity building for their members and thus facilitating their integration into civic, economic, social and working life;
• groups of civil society organizations (networks of such organizations at the local or provincial level, parent-teacher associations, local NGOs etc.), particularly those that work with fragile groups, economically and socially marginalized groups, and groups excluded from formal education and training systems.

From the consultation process to taking the floor in Ouagadougou

ADEA will undertake all this networking activity in order to obtain the greatest possible coverage of the activities of all public, private and community-based stakeholders working in education and training, so that this sector will gradually become capable of meeting the challenges of sustainable development in Africa.

This effort to include all stakeholders will not be limited to mere analysis of their actions, experiences and contributions. The 2011 Triennale will give them the floor so that they can voice their own views on how to promote critical knowledge, skills and qualifications and make their own contributions toward a future that we must build together: that of the sustainable development of Africa.

Concept note on the youth consultation process

Youth: definition and modes of involvement

The  consultation  of  young  Africans  is  quite  naturally  a  part  of  the  process  of  preparation  for  the Triennale, since they are the people most directly concerned by the acquisition of critical knowledge, skills and qualifications for sustainable development in Africa. Education and training policies should enable  them  to  become  integrated  as  far  as  possible,  in  both  occupational and  social  terms,  in  a society from which many of them are currently excluded. This consultation is not the first of its kind. The United Nations undertook  such  an  initiative  in 2004  to  involve  young people,  and particularly young  leaders,  in  efforts  to  achieve  the Millennium  Development  Goals.  Similarly, the  European Union  conducted  a  youth  consultation  as  part  of  the  preparations  for  the  Africa-Europe  Youth Summit held in Lisbon from 5 to 7 December 2007. The  term  “youth” was defined by  the African Youth Charter,  formulated by  the African Union and adopted on 2  July 2006, as “any person  from 15  to 35 years of age”. ADEA  is using  this definition, while at the same time targeting the young people it wishes to consult in four population categories: youth  in  school,  youth  out  of  school, working  youth  and  young  entrepreneurs. At  the  same  time, ADEA wishes  to consult young people  in a significant number of countries  (at  least 30),  in order  to ensure that the sample will offer balanced representation of the various sub-regions of Africa. In choosing the countries, priority will be given to those with strong  involvement  in ADEA activities, those that have already set up national institutions for consultation of youth (such as national youth councils), and those that encourage the participation of young people  in national deliberations and actions on education,  training and employment.

Young people may be  contacted  in any of  several ways:

• through the members of the Steering Committee or the country focal points;·
• through national youth councils;·
• through youth associations formed either at  local  level or on the basis of themes related to·
• education, training, employment or sustainable development;
• through  technical  and  financial  partners  (TFPs)  working  in  areas  related  to  the  Triennale themes.

Procedures for the youth consultation

As  specified  in  the  terms  of  reference  on  the  consultation  process,  which  were  validated  in September 2010 in Tunis, the youth consultation will be conducted in five steps.

Step 1: a quantitative and qualitative survey

The  survey  will  bear  on  young  people’s  views  of  the  education  and  training  situations  of  their countries. A questionnaire on this theme developed by the “youth” coordinator of the consultation process  has  been  finalized  by mutual  agreement  between  the  coordinator,  the  coordination  team and the Secretariat. This questionnaire has been tested on a number of young people and will soon be disseminated via the Internet. It has been agreed that the sample of young people in each country will be made up as follows:

• 3 young people in school;
• 3 young people out of school;
• 3 young people having a job or an economic activity;
• 3 young entrepreneurs or young people who have created their own economic activity.

On the assumption that the survey will cover at least 30 and more probably 40 countries, we should have  an  overall  sample  of  480  young  people  surveyed, which will be  statistically  and  qualitatively significant.

Since all those contacted will not necessarily respond to the survey, it will be necessary to identify a contact  person  in  each  country  selected,  who  will  ensure  adherence  to  the  sampling  profile  by country.  The  persons  identified will  depend  on  the  type  of  contacts  established with  the  country (country focal point, officer of the national youth council, officer of an association, TFP officer).

Step 2: quantitative and qualitative analysis of the survey results

This step requires the adoption or creation of analytical software that supports both the intersection of quantitative data sets and analysis of qualitative data. Once this tool has been selected,  it will be necessary to encode the questionnaires received and to conduct a multicriteria analysis  in order to identify areas of convergence and divergence  in the opinions expressed by the survey respondents. Next,  the  results  obtained  will  be  re-examined  in  the  light  of  open-ended  questions,  which  will themselves  have  been  modeled  and  analyzed.  Lastly, examples of young people’s experiences, positive or negative, will be selected for use in the Triennale preparation process. All of this work will lead to a first draft of the report of the survey results. The draft might also include the results of direct  consultations  of  youth  networks  that  are  particularly  active  at  the  national  or  sub-regional levels. All of these tasks will be the responsibility of the youth coordinator and the team she assembles for that purpose. It would be advisable, however, that they be performed in close cooperation with the overall coordination team, owing to the complexity of the task of interpreting the data.

 Step 3: selection of participants in the youth forum

It has been agreed that the number of participants in the forum will be limited to 50. Each participant must  have  responded  to  the  survey. Basically,  this will  involve  selecting  10% of  the  young  people surveyed. The selection process should observe the following criteria:

• balanced representation of the various African sub-regions;
• balanced representation of the various components making up the sample: youth  in school,
• youth out of school, employed youth and young entrepreneurs;
• gender balance;
• priority to selection of young people in positions of responsibility in national youth councils,
• local or sub-regional associations, student unions, etc.;

priority  to  selection  of  young  people  with  exemplary  scholastic  and  occupational performance;  selection  taking account of  the  financial support  that young people have  received  from  the authorities of their respective countries, NGOs or TFPs (e.g. the Belgian cooperation agency, which is willing to pay the participation costs of young people from the countries where the agency operates).

 Step 4: conducting the youth forum

The  forum will use  the main  survey  results  as  the basis  for  a debate  among  young people on  the following questions:  To  what  extent  are  they  involved  in  the  debates  on  the  design  and  implementation  of effective  education  and  training mechanisms,  and what  do  they  propose  to  enhance  the active participation of youth in current or planned reforms? How  do  they  evaluate  the  strengths  and  weaknesses  of  existing  training  and  vocational tracks, particularly with respect to the qualifications they need in order to enter a skilled job or other skilled occupation, and what suggestions do they have in this respect?   What  is  their  vision  of  sustainable  development  and  of  what  needs  to  be  done  so  that education and training systems do more to promote this vision?   To what types and means of action would they give priority in order to meet the challenges identified in the Triennale theme? The  forum  will  lead  to  the  drafting  of  a  working  paper  on  the  Triennale  theme  that  is  as representative  as  possible  of  the  position  of  young  Africans.  The paper will spell out the specific contribution of young people to the design and implementation of effective education and training systems to promote the sustainable development of Africa.

Step 5: drafting of a “Declaration of Young Africans” for presentation at the Triennale

The working paper stemming from the forum will be published on the Internet. It will be the subject of  dialogue with  all  young  people  interested  in  supplementing  the  conclusions  of  the  survey  and forum. The  dialogue will  be  led  by  the  youth  coordinator  and  her  team.  It will lead to the drafting of a “Declaration of Young Africans” that will be complementary to the existing analytical work and will be presented at the Triennale in Ouagadougou.