Shadow Education in Africa - Private Supplementary Tutoring and its Policy Implications

This study focuses on the so-called shadow education system of private supplementary tutoring. The phenomenon is called shadow education because to a large extent its content mimics that in schooling: as the curriculum changes in the schools, so it changes in the shadow.

Shadow education can help achieve the fourth of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG4) by promoting learning, and well-organised tutorial companies can be a social and economic asset. However, much shadow education also raises major questions about social inequalities, (in)efficiency in education systems, and ethics.