African Entrepreneurship Record

The intention of Austrian merchants is to bring students from East Africa to Austria to work as laborers. This contrast is actually not surprising, just like how many housemaids from the Philippines in the previous world held college degrees. Moreover, East Africa itself has promoted secondary level compulsory education, but the local demand cannot absorb everyone, with many still engaging in agriculture. Thus, going to Austria to work as industrial workers is also a good choice.

Students from East Africa who have a diploma, a certain level of cultural literacy, and most importantly, speak German, can be slightly trained to become high-quality industrial workers. Their wages are definitely lower than those with the same educational level in Austria, offering high cost-to-performance value, so it’s very reasonable.

”Mayor of Clarnis, I would like to ask, have all cities in East Africa, like Mogadishu, achieved compulsory education on this level?” Austrian merchant Terel still found it hard to believe that East Africa had the capability to implement a country-wide compulsory education system at the secondary level.

Because no matter how small Mogadishu is, it is still a provincial capital of East Africa, so its status is very different from ordinary cities, making it understandable for it to have secondary schools.

The urban population of Mogadishu is less than ten thousand, making it truly a small city, so one secondary school is enough.

In the next four to five years, the first baby boom in East Africa’s eastern part from around ten years ago will reach the age to attend secondary school, bringing about a qualitative leap in the number of secondary students in East Africa.

Mogadishu will not be affected because the annexation and development of the northern provinces by East Africa occurred much later than in the east, with inland and southern areas even later than Mogadishu.

Nonetheless, the number of secondary students in East Africa is quite large, already exceeding 1.7 million (aged approximately twelve to seventeen), more than the population of some small countries, with about three hundred thousand graduating each year.

East Africa absorbs secondary students mainly through several channels. First is further education, with local universities unable to enroll many. The number of local university students has not yet reached ten thousand, only over three thousand. Each school enrolls only about a hundred per grade, with only a few hundred in total. Additionally, there are four thousand international students each year, bringing the total to just over seven thousand.

This number is not small, considering that when Germany unified in 1871, the number of students with higher education across the country was only over thirteen thousand. By 1880, the number of university students in Germany had only reached over twenty thousand. East Africa has managed to accumulate a significant foundation.

This is still owing to East Africa’s status as a German country. Otherwise, there would be no way to send international students. Countries like Germany, Austria, and Sweden, which are monarchies, are principal destinations for East African students studying abroad.

In contrast, Japan can only send out thousands of students to Europe and America each year, at a high price, but East Africa, having cooperative relationships with several friendly countries, greatly saves on costs and has more quotas.

The second is the military, with the navy being the main one. The army and navy academies, like the Heixinggen Military Academy and the Ferdinand Naval Academy, also account for a portion, belonging to the military system.

Third is factories, which absorb some students. However, in areas like Mogadishu, where there is little industry, there is no related demand. Most tasks can be completed without a high level of education, not even requiring it. Areas like Dar es Salaam, Nairobi, and Mbeya, which are industrial cities, absorb a lot more.

Clarnis didn’t think much but simply addressed Terel’s question: ”Naturally, East Africa has a significant focus on compulsory education promotion, and started quite early. Although it’s not as developed as the advanced areas of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it is much stronger than those backward regions. Almost every city in East Africa has implemented compulsory primary and secondary education.”

The Austro-Hungarian Empire’s compulsory education is more advanced than East Africa’s in regions like Austria and the Czech Republic. In contrast, Hungary is slightly behind, and other economically more backward areas cannot compare with East Africa.

”How many cities in East Africa have implemented compulsory secondary education?”

”Certainly all of them, possibly some remote areas or undeveloped regions might not have yet been able to implement compulsory education, but many of the slightly older cities certainly have no problem with it. Every city construction soon builds schools, so every city in East Africa has secondary schools.”

Clarnis didn’t know how to explain the difference between East African administrative cities and European cities to Terel. Because East African cities, much like the Far Eastern Empire in the previous world, also administered a large number of regions, including towns and villages, whereas European cities and villages were very distinct and separate.

For this reason, Clarnis didn’t know how many cities East Africa actually had, but according to European standards, the number is certainly no less than fifty, as there are more than twenty provincial capital cities alone. Some provinces, if well-developed, would have more cities, like the Central Province, which has six cities.

Moreover, East Africa’s administrative divisions frequently change. For example, take the Highland Province, which includes the original Highland Province, Kilimanjaro Province, South Lake Province, the old Hohenzollern province, and the Grassland Area of the Great Area era. Therefore, within the Highland Province, five cities have either been provincial or regional capitals at some point.

However, frequent changes in administrative divisions also indicate that the self-regulating ability of the East African state is in a healthy state. East Africa is a new country, and as its territory is frequently expanding, the original administrative divisions cannot keep up with the times.

What Terel wanted to ask was not this, but the specific number of cities in East Africa, so he could estimate how many secondary students East Africa had. However, he subconsciously overlooked the presence of rural secondary schools in East Africa.

Although he visited the first secondary school in Mogadishu, since Mogadishu, though small, is a provincial capital and an ancient city, its having a secondary school didn’t surprise the Austrians too much.

However, Terel found it hard to believe Clarnis’s previous claim that compulsory education at the secondary level had been implemented nationwide in East Africa, even after visiting the first secondary school in Mogadishu.

This is the European prejudice. Even though East Africa proclaims itself a Germanic country, this does not affect the stereotypical impression held by traditional Germanic countries like Germany and Austria, which is that East Africa is merely a colony. Even if it is now larger in area, it is merely a larger colony.

After all, even top powers like the Austro-Hungarian Empire have not fully implemented compulsory education at the primary level. How could East Africa, a mere colony, advance further to promote compulsory secondary-level education nationwide across East Africa?

This argument indeed makes some sense, as whether East Africa has promoted compulsory secondary-level education is indeed questionable. At least by European standards, East African secondary schools can only be regarded as semi-finished products, with expenses on secondary-level compulsory education not much more than those on primary-level compulsory education, only preparing five additional years’ worth of textbooks, and doubling the number of teachers.

If Clarnis knew about Terel’s thoughts, he would certainly refute it. East Africa economically cannot compare with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but politically, the Austro-Hungarian Empire may not be much stronger than East Africa.

As for compulsory education, it’s not purely an economic issue but also a political achievement project, testing the nation’s resource allocation ability. In this aspect, East Africa far surpasses Austro-Hungarian Empire, where there’s much internal bickering.

One can imagine if East Africa and the Austro-Hungarian Empire simultaneously mobilized nationwide, East Africa would far outstrip the present Austro-Hungarian Empire in terms of efficiency and scale, as now both countries’ populations are on the same level.

Besides, East Africa places a great emphasis on standardization, including telegraphs, railroads, and roads as public infrastructure. Conversely, the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s railroad gauges are varied, and the various telegraph companies work independently. It’s just that East Africa’s vast territory might hinder its operational mechanism in this regard.

On the flip side, the vast territory gives East Africa a great sense of security, enabling the effective use of space for time, something Russia must deeply understand, although it indeed makes road and railway construction more challenging than in other countries due to the larger scale of work.