The Limited Impacts of Formal Education on Democratic Citizenship in Africa

This paper examines the relation between formal education, poverty and the lack of infrastructure. It demonstrates how these factors significantly limit the cognitive skills of ordinary Africans, and thus their ability to act as full democratic citizens. First, the authors discuss the various elements of cognitive awareness and isolate and trace the direct and indirect effects of formal education. Second, they examine the effects of formal education across a broader range of dimensions of democratic citizenship and attempt to isolate and assess the specific impact of higher education within this process.

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