In many countries education is considered as the only way
out of poverty. However, families with low income and from rural areas have low
access to education. In the short documentary of “South Africa: What would you
risk to get an education?” from “Why Poverty” by Nadine Cloete, Kelina, aged
12, travelling a road full of dangers to go to school and get education. While
some children get to the school with their parents by car, a child can get
killed or raped on the way to the school in South Africa. Furthermore, nearly ¾
of the people who live in rural areas even don’t have drinkable water, food or
health care. Many families in poverty must choose between food and electricity.
People live in such conditions prioritize their basic needs before education
and we can’t blame this effort.
There is a common 21st century belief that: “Studying not
only broadens our knowledge, but also gives us a good job and a better quality
of life”. In the documentary of “Education, Education: What does an education
get you?” from “Why Poverty?” by Weijun Chen, families would sell their cows,
pigs and even their houses in order to provide a good education and therefore a
better life for their children. Students with the highest marks are invited to
top universities with low fees, while the rest of the students must pay higher
fees, often borrowing money or soliciting neighborhood support, and don’t find
jobs at the end of their course of education that pay them a wage above the
poverty level.
Likewise in the short documentary, many children encounter
in problems that they need to give priority before getting a good education.
School is not a main focus for children who face with the problems of food and
safety. Simple comparisons between children in poor families and children in
non-poor families using national datasets indicate that poor children are more
likely to do worse on indices of school achievement than non-poor children are.
Poor children are twice as likely as non-poor children to have repeated a
grade, to have been expelled or suspended from school, or to have dropped out
of high school. They are also 1.4 times as likely to be identified as having a
learning disability in elementary or high school than their non-poor
counterparts [2]. Furthermore another study published in JAMA Pediatrics, have shown that children who
were living in poverty and whose parents lacked nurturing skills were likely to
have less gray (associated with intelligence) and white (linked to the brain’s
ability to transmit signals between cells and structures) matter in their
brains. Also MRI scans showed that two key brain structures were smaller in
poor children, compared with wealthier children, which are, amygdala - a
structure linked to emotional health - and the hippocampus - an area of the
brain linked to memory and learning [3].
Children born in low socio-economic-status families are
starting to life with lower chances even from birth. Is that the way in which
it should work? Children from wealthier families will get a good education
anyways and children from poor families barely will bridge the gap with the
other kids even they are the top students. Every child has the right to grow up
in a safe environment and access education. As Nelson Mandela said: “Education
is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” education
will be the answer to many problems raised by globalization. It is here that education
will break this vicious cycle through becoming a human right.
References:
[1] Hunger and World Poverty, Retrieved from
[2] Gale
Encyclopedia of Education: Overview of Poverty and Education
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