EDUCATION IN
THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES
Article written by Min Hur
PROBLEM
Many children who live in poverty struggle to access good education. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), around 20% of young children in third world countries or developing countries are not able to complete primary school and eventually experience a setback when looking for jobs. Around 250 million children cannot read or write, and a whopping 71 million teenagers have not been able to attend secondary school.
There are many reasons why people in poverty do not have easy access to educational systems, however, these are just a few:
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Their families do not have the money to be able to fund their education or the country itself does not have the money to fund the building of schools and the cost of hiring teachers
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They lack a classroom, or an educated teacher, or both
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Students with disabilities have much more difficulty being able to attend a school because many third world countries usually discriminate against these students or do not have teachers who are trained to teach disabled students (blind, deaf, etc.)
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The distance from their homes to the closest school is too far to walk from the back and forth on a day to day basis
CURRENTLY
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Many third world countries are struggling to keep up with educational goals set by UNESCO for 2000. While some countries are coming close, many are falling very behind. As populations increase in these countries, it is much more difficult for the country’s educational system to keep up with funding.
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Currently, many children and young adults, especially of the female gender, need an alternative educational system so that they could successfully learn the skills they need in order to be able to work and keep a job. Although many countries, including the US, attempt to give aid for these children’s education, this aid usually never reaches the country. For example, in the United States, the 3.1 billion dollars that were supposed to go to help children who don’t have easy access to education actually ended up going to foreign students in donor countries. The funding given to one student from one donor country could have given access to a good education to 229 students in third world countries.
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However, on the other hand, there are certain countries that have successfully been expanding their educational programs and systems. For example, Uganda removed the direct costs which allowed for 60% more students to be able to attend primary school. Another example would be Ethiopia. Although they are still struggling to increase the quality of the education provided for students, they have helped 15 million students to be able to have some sort of education.
TAKE ACTION
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The biggest thing that we could do to help third world countries and their children to have access to education would be to donate to organizations including UNICEF, Save the Children, and many more. Even small amounts of money could have a significant change in the education of a child in countries including Ethiopia.
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