Sub-Saharan Africa by the numbers

In short, despite recent gains, sub-Saharan Africa is desperately poor both economically and in terms of its human capital.

In addition, sub-Saharan Africa has seen some of the bloodiest conflicts and massacres since the end of World War 2.

If we look at the rise of SE Asia there is a common theme that may be expressed with one word: manufacturing. To an extent never before seen in history SE Asian countries made use of disciplined, low wage labour forces to become manufacturing hubs.

The paths these various countries followed are quite different. Indonesia, blessed with vast natural resources, did not follow the same path as South Korea which, in turn, did things differently to China. But almost all the SE Asian countries emphasised manufacturing in one form or another and to one degree or another.

And that is the main reason the SE Asian countries advanced on a broad front, offering employment to, quite literally, a few hundred million people, while Angola has not.

I do not think this path is open to Africa. Manufacturing technology has moved on. It will never again be a source of mass-employment. The SE Asian countries are going to have to find different jobs for future generations as is the case in the industrialised West.

In the future, manufacturing will be like agriculture. It will remain important but few people will work in factories.

To put it bluntly, I think Africa missed the boat on this one.

And at this point I have to say that I do not see a path forward for most people in sub-Saharan Africa. I think the commodities boom will make a relatively small elite wealthy. But I fear the majority of the people of sub-Saharan Africa will continue to eke out an existence that is barely above subsistence level for the foreseeable future.

But, then again, most people said that about Asia in 1960. And in many parts of Asia, especially on the Indian sub-continent, that is still true.

Why did sub-Saharan Africa and SE Asia follow such different paths? Everyone has theories ranging from "it's all the fault of the colonialists" to "Africans are stupid."

I'll leave the last word to Mamphele Ramphele, former vice chancellor of my alma mater, the University of Cape Town.

Mamphela Ramphele lashed out at South Africa's education system

South Africa's education system is worse today than the "gutter education" the country had under the apartheid government, said an academic and struggle heroine Mamphela Ramphele, The Star reported on Friday.

"Maths literacy… what is that? It's worse than the arithmetic I did under Bantu education," Ramphele was quoted saying.

She was addressing the sixth annual Solomon Mahlangu lecture at the University of Johannesburg.

Ramphele criticised the much praised matric pass rate saying it was deceptive, consigning thousands to a life that promised neither further education nor employment.

She lashed out at the 30 percent pass benchmark, saying it degraded education standards and was used for political purposes.

"Kader Asmal [former education minister] fell for micropolitics when, under his watch, a 40 percent pass rate suddenly became 70 percent."

Ramphele also criticised the 70.2 percent pass rate achieved by last year's matriculants.

"There was a great razzmatazz about the 'historic' 70.2 percent, but this performance was deceptive-less than 500,000 people showed up to write their matric exams; 539,102 students [who were in grade 1, 12 years prior] disappeared from the system. The department of education must tell us what happened to those children."-Sapa