Importance+of+Education

Many governments have made a commitment to ending poverty not only in the United States, but also across the entire world and a major part of the solution to the broad term of poverty is to increase the education of the population. Therefore the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has created a program under the leader, Koïchiro Matsuura, which aims to better educate children and adults about different topics such as proper health care, secondary schooling and most importantly primary schooling. The program, called the "Millennium Development Goals", also focuses on equal education for male and female children in all countries. This focus has come about because traditionally, only every one in four children were female. This program has also called for better facilities for children and adults to learn in as well as making educational tools such as books and other learning materials more readily accessible. The creators of the program believe that by making education, especially primary and secondary education more available, the greater the number of children who will actually attend school, and who will eventually grow up to become adults who have a positive impact on society. Since the initiation of the program back in 2000, there has been the need for the program to push for a greater number of educators to meet the growing educational demands of the great influx of children who have entered into the school system. This great influx can most likely be attributed also to the drop of primary school fees by some countries. By making primary school as inexpensive as possible the program has drawn many disadvantaged children into the schooling system, who would have otherwise not had the opportunity to obtain a formal education. The other half of the battle which the program focuses on is keeping these children in school once the children have enrolled. If the children cannot stay actively engaged in school throughout their primary and secondary education, then the education is not paying off. If these children and especially females can receive a complete and thorough education through their primary and secondary educational tracts then there is a much greater chance that these children will grow up to become well informed adults who will have powerful positive effect on their community and the world overall.
 * Education as a Means of Fighting Poverty**

Nobody doubts that a better-educated workforce is more likely to enjoy higher earnings. But education by itself is a necessary insufficient antipoverty tool. Yes, poor people absolutely need more education and skill training, but they also need an economic context wherein they can realize the economic returns from their improved human capital. Over the past few decades, the set of institutions and norms that historically maintained the link between skills and incomes have been diminished, particularly for non-college-educated workers. Restoring their strength and status is essential if we want the poor to reap the benefits they deserve from educational advancement. One study found that a year of schooling raised the earnings of welfare recipients by 7 percent, the conventional labor economics finding. But given that many of these workers entered the job market in the $6- to $8-an-hour range back in the 1990s, you're talking about moving families closer to the poverty line, not pushing them significantly above it.

Sources: Matsuura, Koïchiro. World Education Report: The right to education. Towards education for all throughout life. UNESCO Publishing (2000). Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. Web. 3 May 2011.

Vaughan, Rosie Peppin. "Girls' and women's education within UNESCO and the World Bank. 1945-2000. A Journal of Comparative and International Education. 405-423. Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. Web. 6 May 2011.

A study conducted in Florida shows how greatly vast the gap is between the reading and literacy levels of children for high socioeconomic households and those from low socioeconomic households. The study shows that the children in Florida grade schools who come from high socioeconomic households have much higher reading and literacy values which will lead them to success in their futures. On the other hand the children from low socioeconomic households tended to have very low literacy and reading levels which would indicate that they will most likely remain in a low socioeconomic household for the rest of their lives.

Source: Crowe, Elizabeth Coyne, et al. "Examining the core: Relations among reading curricula, poverty, and first through third grade reading achievement". Journal of School Psychology. (2009) 187-214. Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. Web. 6 May 2011.

There is a big stress on children in poverty when it comes to their education. Most of the time it has to do with the parents not being able to afford school and supplies for their children, but a lot of the time it is because the children are not pushed to go. The parents and family members feel that they cant provide home school for them so they just give up all together, but it is very important for parents to just sit down with their kids and talk, or read, or practice adding. It is the simple things that can make the difference in how a child can get an education, even if it's not the most ideal situation. ~Children in Poverty and Their Readiness to learn