The African continent is home to more than 800 million people — a seventh of the world's population, with the highest population growth rate. Half the population is illiterate. Wars, foreign debt and the HIV/AIDS epidemic are among the daunting challenges to its education systems, and many of its countries urgently require assistance from industrialised nations.

In response to this crisis, the churches of Scientology and Applied Scholastics have made assistance to African nations a priority, with teams of tutors establishing themselves in Africa since the mid-1970s.

Education programmes employing Study Technology have had a tremendous impact across Africa — opening the doors to learning for more than 2 million students — such as these children from Zimbabwe.

South Africa

In South Africa, Scientologists formed Education Alive in 1975. Education Alive staff and volunteers trained in Study Technology offered lectures, courses and workshops in the townships.

Over nearly three decades — and in the face of oppression from the apartheid-era government — Education Alive has trained 20,000 teachers who have brought the Study Technology to 2 million children in that country.

Zimbabwe

Members of the Church brought the Study Technology to Zimbabwe in 1977. Welcomed by local officials, this technology played a vital role in upgrading the quality of education through the training of more than 12,000 teachers.

Zimbabwe

A 1998 evaluation of the impact of Study Technology in one school district near the nation's capital revealed that more than 90 percent of the teachers saw an improvement in the literacy and comprehension levels of their students who were trained in the Study Technology. Further, the teachers themselves experienced improved motivation and confidence, enabling them to be more self-sufficient in overcoming the difficulties facing them in everyday teaching.

In 2002, a team of Scientologist educators from the United Kingdom trained 30 Zimbabwean educators to deliver Study Technology workshops who, in turn, trained 3,700 teachers. These teachers have now brought Study Technology to more than 100,000 children in Zimbabwe.

Ghana

“For over 20 years, I have been searching for some technology to bring home to Ghana that will truly benefit the people. “This search has not been easy. But, thanks to L. Ron Hubbard's Study Technology, I am back home now with the most simple and yet effective technology available. Study Technology is the lighthouse giving us bright rays of hope for the 21st century.” — Princess Asie Ocansey, Ghana

The work of Scientologists and a member of one of the royal families of Ghana has brought hope to a once failing nation. Determined to handle a high illiteracy rate, they arranged for the delivery of Study Technology in makeshift schoolhouses to 1,000 students and 52 teachers in the region of Ada, in the delta of the Volta river.

With whole classes of previously failing students now passing their tests, the government wanted the Study Technology in the hands of all teachers and students through the creation of a centre to serve as home base for the training of teachers.

When a new 10,000-square-foot training facility opened in 2000, the Minister of Foreign Affairs conducted dignitaries through the facility and the Ghanaian president praised the new centre and L. Ron Hubbard's Study Technology for “its far-reaching impact to unleash a truly global learning experience.”