Education, Skills and Innovation in Africa: Evidence, Power and the Politics of Knowledge

This inaugural editorial introduces the African Journal of Education, Skills and Innovation (AJESI), a diamond open access, double-blind peer-reviewed journal published by the African Skills and Innovation Network. AJESI is conceived not as a conventional scholarly outlet but as an intellectual project: a platform for rethinking the role of education, skills and innovation in Africa and across the Global South. The editorial makes three connected arguments. First, that the dominant policy framing of Africa's education and skills challenge, organized around measurable shortfalls against external benchmarks, is analytically weak because it treats as technical what is substantially political, and obscures the colonial inheritance and neoliberal restructuring that shaped the systems now under scrutiny. Second, that the empirical picture nonetheless matters, and that four interlocking deficits define the field the journal seeks to serve: a foundational learning deficit, a transition deficit, an innovation and knowledge-application deficit, and a deficit in the production of knowledge about Africa by scholars based in Africa. Third, that these deficits cannot be addressed within the disciplinary and epistemic boundaries that currently divide the field. Drawing on evidence from the African Union, the African Development Bank, the International Labour Organization, UNESCO, UNCTAD, the World Bank, UNDP and the International Telecommunication Union, alongside peer-reviewed scholarship in higher education studies, vocational education research, innovation studies and scientometrics, the editorial sets out five founding commitments and the journal's editorial standards. It concludes by inviting scholars, policymakers, educators, industry leaders, development partners and practitioners to contribute.