My principal purpose in writing this book is to use my architectural skills, my pre-bank professional experience in low cost construction, and my 12 years of experience in the World Bank in education and community-driven development projects to contribute to the knowledge base on school construction in Africa, The book attempts to answer the following questions: What works in school construction? What does not and why? What approaches are more cost-effective than others? Little research on the last question exists. A multitude of different school construction approaches have been experimented with and implemented by African countries over the last 30 years, yet these diverse experiences have often not been evaluated at all or not sufficiently. Thus, this book attempts to fill this knowledge gap by drawing the key lessons learned in school construction in Africa, and by make this knowledge accessible to and easy to understand for education policy decision-makers and planners as well as implementers of school construction policies and program; and development partners. In education, a solid knowledge base has been developed over the last 10 years in the areas of quality; curricula, assessment and management, but this did not include school construction. This knowledge gap presented an obstacle for African countries in the process of developing and implementing national education sector plans with the objective of achieving the Education for All initiative goal of universal primary education for all.