I expect the general reader and experts on African education to benefit tremendously from this fascinating as well as excellently researched and very well-written book.

African and Asian Studies (AAS)

This is a very good book for researchers, educationists, education commentators, policy makers, politicians, parents, etc. It provides insights into the ecstasy and the agony of UPE in Africa, and proposes a review of system-wide reforms which would ensure access, retention, throughput and quality. Its greatest value lies in systematic documentation of the beginning and performance of UPE on the continent.

International Review of Education

Professor Munene’s work is an extremely comprehensive discussion of the way the leadership in African states worked to develop meaningful primary education in the face of the continental colonial ideology of education repression. It is detailed with the necessarily complex interplay of national and international policy agencies and for scholars and students of comparative education it is essential. This work is essential for general readers in the Social Foundations of Education, since it offers a diverse continental template showing the tension between vocational and academic human capital designs in national policies which had, and have, unintended and, sometimes, revolutionary consequences.

Guy Senese, Northern Arizona University

In Africa, Universal Primary Education discourse tends to concentrate on access and enrollment. This most welcome piece of work on Achieving Education for All elevates the discussion on UPE to quality education, learning achievement, and, above all, learning outcomes. The editor and authors are to be congratulated. Educators, school leaders, and policy makers should find this book invaluable to the important work of transforming lives that they do.

Fredrick Muyia Nafukho, Texas A&M University

This book offers a more analytical and critical perspective on the subject of education service delivery in Africa. This is a timely contribution given the new dimension in the discourse and practice and around the persisting challenge to the realization of Education for All (EFA). The work of authoritative scholars and practitioners that is, in essence, an invaluable standpoint account on education in Africa, this book would be interesting for those who desire a holistic understanding of the challenges and failings of school systems in Africa. It is a good basis for thinking about comprehensive and strategic development intervention in education.

Edith Mukudi Omwami, University of California, Los Angeles