Despite immense challenges, progress is gaining a foothold in pockets of Africa, in spheres ranging from democracy to education, AP correspondents report in a series, Rethinking Africa. This story, accompanying Part II, Rethinking Africa-Back to School, looks at private education.

LILONGWE, Malawi — On the day before her 11th birthday, Memory Mzingwa offers no apology for a private school education in Africa that gives her the rare chance at a life better than her parents have.

Memory's father, who owns a construction company, scrapes to afford US $1,500 a year for each of his three children to go to private school.

"I study because my father struggles and makes sacrifices so I can go to this school," Memory says as she tugs absently at her sky blue blazer, the crowning glory of the Mt. Sinai International School uniform and a badge of rank in the rigid class system of African education.

As millions of African children languish in crowded and underfunded public schools, the interest in private schools is growing. Some of it comes from Africa's tiny but expanding middle class, to which Memory's family belongs. The middle class in sub-Saharan Africa is expected to grow from 12.8 million people in 2000 to 43 million in 2030, according to the World Bank.

Interest is also coming from donors such as the United Nations and the World Bank, which notes increasing demand for private schools. Earlier this year, the World Bank approved a $50 million programme to provide risk guarantees for local banks to help fund private schools in Africa.

Private schools serve about 10 percent of 101 million children enrolled in primary school in sub-Saharan Africa. For secondary school, it's 14 percent of 31 million children, according to UNESCO.

However, growth in private schools is difficult to pin down because so many fly beneath the radar, and because quality and cost vary tremendously. Private schools in Africa range from the elite few that serve the continent's wealthiest families to the mom-and-pop shops that spring up in back yards, started by parents fed up with the failings of the public schools.

At the high end are schools like Kamuzu Academy, one of the three best private schools in Malawi. At a time when the goal of many African public schools is to teach basic math and literacy, it is these top private schools that will provide the doctors, engineers and other professionals to lead the continent in the future.

Tuition at Kamuzu is equivalent to $4,500 a year, while 55 percent of Malawians live on a dollar a day or less. Malawi began two years ago to give Kamuzu scholarships to the public school boy and girl with the best exam results in each district, but the 66 scholarships a year are more symbolic than meaningful in a school system with 3 million students.

At Kamuzu, red buildings with crenelated roofs rise like castles from the remote African bush, and brick facades with tall, graceful arches mimic Rome's ancient aqueducts. The only reminder of Africa on campus is a three-foot-long monitor lizard scampering between the dormitories.

Hasting Kamuzu Banda, Malawi's first president, founded the school to give Malawian children a classical British education. He built it near the tree he sat beneath when he began his first formal schooling.

"They tell us constantly that we are the future of Malawi. That we have to study and do well. That we are the lucky ones. They say it so often that no one pays any attention anymore," says Sithembile Chimaliro, 15, a 10th-grade student at Kamuzu.

"But we do know that we are lucky and most of us do work hard," she adds. "Kids all over Malawi dream of going to Kamuzu."

A decade after Banda's death, the academy still reflects the prejudices of its austere and authoritarian founding father. Hailed in Malawi as "Eton of the bush," Kamuzu teaches British but not African literature and history. Students aren't allowed to speak their native language in front of the staff.

"Unfortunately, we are raising perfect little English gentlemen in the African bush," says Hawkins Gondwe, one of the first black teachers at the school, which had only white teachers during Banda's lifetime.

"All classes are in English. It is a British school with a British curriculum. Students dress like British school children and there is British food in the dining room."

The design of Kamuzu's library was inspired architecturally by the Library of Congress. For the most part, the fiction shelves are filled with such authors as D.H. Lawrence, Thomas Hardy, Edith Wharton, Jane Austen, Mark Twain and even Hunter Thompson. The wall of the cavernous art room is decorated with prints of Auguste Renoir's Le Moulin de la Galette and the Lunch of the Boating Party.

"I think it is good that the school is producing perfect little English gentlemen. The Brits taught us their way of life. To change it now would be confusing," says Kelvin Mmangisa, the chairman of the academy's parents association.

Mmangisa, the owner of a cold Mmangisa, the owner of a cold storage company in Lilongwe, sent each of his three daughters to Kamuzu. One is now a sales executive, another is attending medical school in St. Petersburg, Russia, and his youngest is still at the school.

"Part of the problem with public schools is, there are no role models," says Mmangisa, noting that he grew up with a father who was a civil servant. "Kamuzu has books, facilities, computers and it produces students who go on to become doctors, lawyers and bankers."

Memory is hoping to achieve her dream — and her father's — of becoming a doctor through her education at Mt. Sinai. Her brother wants to become an architect and her sister a lawyer. Mt. Sinai's classrooms are Spartan, with wooden benches and concrete floors. But at least there are classrooms — along with a library, electricity and computers — in a country where most public school students sit outside in the weeds.

As she sits on the stairs outside the library, surrounded by manicured grounds, Memory is comfortable, confident and blissfully unaware of the shortcomings of most African education.

She does know she is lucky. The world, she reasons, doesn't pretend to be fair. Here as well as in Paris, London, New York or Katmandu, the fat get fatter, the rich get richer and the poor linger, struggle and die before their time.

"Here people suffer and can't afford private schools. That is a way of life and there is nothing that can be done about it," she declares, and then pauses and adds: "I'm a philosopher, huh?"