Friday, April 19, 2013

Blog #10-Alex Plummer


The following article communicates the importance of worldwide education for primary school age children by 2015. Of this segment of children, 61 million are not in school and half of them are living in only 8 countries. These countries include Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Nigeria, Yemen, and South Sudan. The dismal amount of educated youths is being attributed to the factors of inequality such as where they live, poverty, conflict, gender and ethnicity. But factors differ for each country and some have made progress in changing their educational systems. In most low-income countries, more boys than girls attend school. But thanks to a cash stipend program for girls, Bangladesh has begun to see a larger female population in their schools. In Nigeria the chance of children entering or completing primary school depends greatly on their residence and the wealth of their family. Nigeria has the world’s highest number of out-of-school children, amounting to 10 million. Statistics from 2008 reveal that in northeastern Nigeria almost three-quarters of the poorest children aged 7 to 16 had never been to school, while almost every affluent child had. Factors of regional conflict have a great affect on children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In regions of conflict, the richest children have a similar chance of going to school as those in the major city of the Congo. But 1-in-3 of the poorest children has never been to school and girls make up 44% of those children. The author believes that the ministers of finance need to work together with ministers of education in order to mend these disparities.
Education worldwide needs great improvements and the poorest people in each society are suffering the most when it comes to education. I do agree with the author in the sense that renovating the educational system takes the resources and skills of various governmental parties. Income inequality obviously places the largest role in the division of who receives an education through school and who doesn’t.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/pauline-rose/inequality-education_b_3106557.html

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