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Improvement in Literacy Rates
The literacy rates for women and men continue to improve in most SADC
Member States due to these regional instruments and others, and the
gender gap has been reduced significantly. Since 2006, all SADC
Member States have literacy rates above 50 percent, with Seychelles and
Eswatini having the highest rates for women in 2016/2017 at 95.7 per-
cent and 93.1 percent, respectively.

Harmonised Regional Qualifications Framework
Progress has been made on the SADC Qualifications Framework
(SADC QF), which facilitates human resources development and avail-
ability of educated and highly skilled personnel through comparable edu-
cation and training systems. Some Member States have developed or are
revising their national qualification frameworks to align with the regional
framework. South Africa and Seychelles have already done this, while others
are making notable progress. The framework allows students to move between uni-
versities and polytechnics in the SADC region without adjusting their qualifications, as
a common system will facilitate the transfer of educational credits between institutions in
different countries. Professionals who are trained in any of the SADC Member States can
now work anywhere in the region without undertaking supplementary training in the host
country. SADC has created the SADC Qualifications Verification Network to facilitate the
verification of qualifications in the region.
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Learning Anywhere in SADC
An important milestone in the education sector was realized in June 2005 when the SADC
Centre for Distance Education (SADC-CDE) was established by SADC Ministers of Edu-
cation as an Open and Distance Learning (ODL) Centre, in partnership with the Com-
monwealth of Learning to support the development, management and quality provision
of ODL in the SADC region. Hosted at the Ministry of Tertiary Education, Research,
Science and Technology in Botswana, the centre allows citizens in SADC to learn any-
where in the region. This development has been instrumental in improving literacy rates
in the region. In addition, strategies and programmes for increasing access and reducing
attrition rates in the education systems have been developed and implemented.

SADC Virtual University of Transformation
The SADC Virtual University of Transformation hosted by Eswatini is a milestone
in the education sector. The university will seek to train citizens in innovation and
entrepreneurship as SADC intensifies efforts to transform itself into an industrial-
ised region. The university will operate through a virtual platform, and will focus
on entrepreneurship, innovation, commercialization, technology transfer, enter-
prise development, and the digital and knowledge economy, to support the in-
dustrialisation agenda.

Learning Heritage
SADC has embarked on a review of the history curriculum across the region at
the request of SADC Ministers of Education, to determine how this can be
strengthened and appropriate materials provided for teaching the regional dimensions
and linkages of liberation heritage based on common values, as espoused by the SADC
founders. This review builds on the SADC Mbita Project on Southern African Liberation
Struggles. One achievement is the development of the first Module of resource materials
on the subject of Youth in the Liberation Struggle, which includes an illustrated booklet,
a video and messaging used on social media platforms.