American Responsibility Case Study and Persuasion Project

          Should America Help Setup Schools in Third World Countries? I believe that

America needs to be involved with the education of people in third world countries because educated people can solve problems, teach others, and develop communities.

Education is more than just going to school to learn math, science or history. Education can diminish poverty, help create future leaders and provide self reliance. Education in third world countries is lacking in many ways and education programs face many difficulties. Poverty, child labor, and poor teaching environments are some of the biggest struggles hampering education in third world countries.

According to the 2007 Human Development Report, More than 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where income differentials are widening. (2007 Human Development Report, 25) This means that poverty causes a vicious cycle where only the rich can afford an education and not getting an education ensures you will never be rich. To stop this trend, more effective education systems are needed. The only way for this to happen is with financial and other types of aid from the US.

In poor countries it has become the norm for children to help with family chores or bring income to their family rather than attend school. The United Nations Millennium Goals Report states that, “Based on enrollment data, about 72 million children of primary school age in the developing world were not in school in 2005; 57 per cent of them were girls.” (Millennium Development Goals Report 2007, 11) While there are financial ways to battle this problem, we must help educate the governments and families in these countries on how to break the cycle by allowing everyone the opportunity of an education.

For students to be successful in primary and secondary education, adequate buildings, staff, and other resources must be provided. Many third world schools are not equipped for learning at any level and teachers are handicapped by inadequate resources. The resource problems can be attributed to the poor economy, but general societal and governmental attitudes keep funding for education at a very low priority level. Statistics show that in the nineties, third world countries spent less than one dollar on each student’s learning materials, where the industrialized countries, such as the United States, spent $100-$200 per student (Hanley, 2008).

Clearly this is a large gap that must be addressed to make headway in providing better education to children who don’t have the privilege of being born here.

References

1       2007 Human Development Report (HDR), United Nations Development Program, November 27, 2007, p.25.

2       Millennium Development Goals Report 2007 http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/mdg2007.pdf, Page 11

3       Hanley, Charles (2008). Studies: Iraq costs US $12B per Month - The Huffington Post. Web site: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/10/studies-iraq-costs-us-1_n_90694.html