Improving Access to Education
The importance of education is generally accepted across age, gender, and creed in the developed world. A recent report from the United Nations Girls Education Initiative celebrates strides that have been made in recent years pertaining to the parity in primary school enrollment of girls and advantages girls have gained over boys in secondary and tertiary education enrollment. Despite gains that can be seen, not only in the developed but also in the developing world, girls, especially in the most economically depressed countries, still face barriers to education. These barriers vary by location and range from distance, cost vs. income, masculinity and violence, low physical access to schools, and overall poverty. The world community should be encouraged by steps forward in the education of girls worldwide, but significant barriers still need to be addressed.From your reading of Half the Sky and other sources, what strategies have been employed to facilitate education of girls in developing countries? What effect is this likely to have in future generations? And what role should tourism play in supporting such initiatives?
According to Half the Sky, there have been many strategies to help the efforts to increase education in developing countries. One of the strategies begins with an obvious one which is donations. Half the Sky talks about an American that was reading about suffering education and sent $100. It was a mess up and ended up in the result of a donation of $10,000 that help build facilities and new schools. Another effort that has been implemented is deworming of children. Removing or preventing the infection of worms has helped young girls stay healthy and succeed in school.
ReplyDeleteProviding iodized oil capsules to women that are pregnant has helped with birth and keeping children healthy. Donations and efforts to help girls manage their menstruation has helped keep them in school. With the lack of materials and supplies for them to manage it, embarrassment has prevented them from going to school and result falling behind. Depends and Always helped donated supplies and materials to make sure that girls were staying in school.
Another way girls have been pushed to stay in school is that they would be rewarded a scholarship to those who earned the highest grades in the class. By this, they tried harder and made better grades. In result, the boys tried harder in fear of being left behind which led to them making better grades. Because of the increase in education to those that are young, they are able to find job opportunities and send money to their family. Then their family can support their other children, and they too will make money and send it home. The result is the increase economic activity in the villages and community.
One would assume that the main reason for girls, or even boys, not attending school would be due to a lack of income. Therefore, raising money for poor families or finding a way for families to pay for their children’s education would be the main concern. However, money to pay for schooling isn’t necessarily the entire case. After reading this chapter on education in Half the Sky, a lot of the reasons for girls not being educated is due to health and body issues that prevent them from attending school. For example, I couldn’t believe that a majority of girls in some countries have intestinal worms, which of course leads to illness and in return leads to much more absenteeism. A study done on this proved it to be true, and what is even more astonishing is that it only costs fifty cents to deworm a child in Africa. Strategies such as deworming, which is cheap in our eyes, is one cost-effective ways to increase education among girls. Some other health related strategies include managing girls’ menstruation to prevent embarrassment in public, as well as iodizing more salt to prevent brain damage.
ReplyDeleteWhether it’s raising money to pay for tuition or prevent health issues that lead to school absenteeism, all of these strategies lead to healthier and well-educated girls. These girls then grow up and are more likely to have healthier children themselves who will be sent to school. In addition, like Dai Manju who was eventually given a scholarship to attend school and then found a job locally, just she alone affected her family’s income and was able to help friends get jobs as well. This was one person able to positively effect many friends and family because of being educated...imagine what multiple educated girls could do for an economy, culture, or town?
The most obvious role that tourism could play in supporting the education of girls would be bringing money into the economy that could be specifically directed towards school buildings, school tuition, and the physical health of children. Schools could even get involved with tourists who are interested in interacting with these young students, possibly to teach them, which would promote staying in school.
In some of the research I have done in collaboration colleagues in developing regions, we discovered that tourism was often creating informal income earning opportunities to children and young women who were able to sell crafts and cultural performances to tourists. While such opportunities brought the short-term benefit of added household income and perhaps resulted in less hunger and improved access to health; this income also made host communities less motivated to keep their kids in school (more time in school = less household income).
ReplyDeleteSo... improved access to income, in these cases, had a negative effect on education! The relationship between poverty, education and health are so complex that it is at times daunting to try to think of solutions.
There have been many successful and unsuccessful strategies implemented in developing countries. The main top-down strategy has been building more schools, which is expensive and doesn’t insure proper, dependable education is being given to students. Some of the techniques used that I’d never come across were the use of deworming to increase attendance levels and help with focus, and helping girls manage menstruation. Both are cost effective and can be introduced on a community level, helping cut down on misused funds. Similar to deworming, iodizing salt improves students’ health and focus levels, especially in females, and increases attendance levels. The most obvious technique used is bribery. In Mexico poor rural families were paid to keep their children in schools and take them to regular medical checkups. Larger grants were given for females to make it to high school, since they had the greatest dropout rate. This was quite successful, but I can’t imagine it will be as cost effective over a larger percentage of the population. They do make the point that with the improvements in health and education this program provides, their return on investment will come in the form of an improved economy. It will also be interesting to see how the experimental version of this program in New York turns out.
ReplyDeleteMost of the programs address health as well as education. These two things will have huge impacts on the country at large by taking pressure off of healthcare systems and providing an educated workforce able to bring more money into their communities, and to be a future source of innovation. By raising the health and access to income of people in poorer, rural communities, it’s possible to lift the entire community. By making sure women are represented strongly in these programs, this educated, healthy workforce can be doubled. It’s also been shown that when women gain education, they’re more likely to use the greater income and power to strengthen their families and communities. There’s a great example of this in Half the Sky in the story of Ann and Angeline. Ann worked with communities in Zimbabwe who didn’t have enough money to send all their children to school. They assumed the boys would get a better return on education, so they sent them over their girls. She met many girls though who were doing all they could to continue in school despite their lack of financial backing. Once she knew the source of the problem was financial, and not necessarily social, she worked to provide money to families to educate their female children. Ann went back to England determined to raise money for these villages. The first year she was able to raise enough money to send thirty-two girls. The big thing that’s notable here though, is that because she had worked directly with the community when hoping to fill a need, the money went to where it was meant to go. She later based her organization, Campaign for Female Education, or Camfed on the model and has since helped more than 400,000 children to attend school. This small contribution will have bigger impacts because the graduates from Camfed have joined together to raise their community up. The have banded together against sexual abuse of girls, campaigned against arranged marriages, and most importantly, are each helping support an average of five girls outside their families to go to school. This is a true case of bottom-up success which allows the community to help itself.
Continued from above...
ReplyDeleteThe most pressing question for us is how can people here, and other developed countries, make sure their money is getting to the right sources? People First Tourism would be a great support system for the women coming out of Camfed, and other small bottom-up education programs. Camfed offers job training and microfinance opportunities to women who have graduated high school. As communities begin to develop through improved health and economy, women can be leaders in attracting tourist to the area. Travelers are always looking to reach “untouched” areas and this would give women influence over how their community develops. By linking these developing tourist areas with our People First System, responsible travelers looking for a way to give directly would have the chance to go to the source. People not ready to visit such undeveloped areas could also be able to use the system, by sending money directly to those directing growth and improvement in these developing communities.
Chapter ten in "Half The Sky" focuses on the importance of education in improving the well being and lives of people living in under-developed countries. The previous outlook was to raise funding through donations to build more schools. This seemed like the logical solution but it was soon realized that this model not only is expensive and costly to maintain but teachers were often not even showing up for work. This top-down model which Jennifer pointed proves to be ineffective. The children that could afford to go to school may not even have a teacher that day. However the families that cannot afford to send their children to school kept them home to help support the family. The problem is alternative cost, the family could send the child to school but they would not be able to afford rice and many family members are often sick and need their children home for daily chores. Such as with Dai Manju's parents, both are elementary school dropouts saw no reason for her to go to school. With a strong desire to go to school, Dai Manju would often find small ways to earn a pencil or paper from her teachers by washing dishes. It wasn't until a large and accidental donation that helped Dai Manju attend school with many other girls, but a new school was built.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting like Jenny pointed out the deworming children led to more school attendance. This led to students being more attentive and alert in class. It is very cost effective and leads to better health for the children. The other issue pointed out that affects women's participation in school is menstruation cycles. Methods were introduced such as donations of pads by proctor and gamble which led to more infrastructure that needed to be implemented to support these donations. Iodizing salt was another example that would lead to higher IQ's in children. Starting from the bottom-up has proved to be the better solution.
The decision to offer bribes to families to keep children in school has also proved to be a great idea. That way families can still get the money to pay for food and send their children to school. As Jennifer pointed out it can be costly to implement over large populations and it will be interesting to discover the findings of the study in New York. The research in New York however could not be the best decision for another part of the world that is under-developed based on social factors.
However the deepest issue here when setting up programs like these are the social ramifications. Such as the UN project in Nigeria with the women who raise cassava to sell at market. They implemented a method that allowed the women to produce much more than the fields would yield normally. They began to make much more money from the effort and the men came in a took the crop away from them because cash crops is a man's business. These issues are so complex and differ throughout each area that is difficult to understand what may happen as a result from a perceived positive effort. You may very well put people in a worse position like the women producing cassava in Nigeria.
Over the past few decades major advances have been made in improving the lives of the rural poor. The study performed by Lucia Breierova and Professor Duflo of the decision by Indonesia to vastly increase school attendance between 1973 and 1978 suggest a correlation between lower fertility rates and more women receiving and education. Positive advances have been taking place and as long as researchers keep the best interests of the people in mind and work with the locals it can continue. The more educated people become, the more they see long term and for the bests interests of their families.
The main reason for girls, and children in general in Africa not attending school would be due to a lack of income. An obvious way to help this problem would be to raise money for poor families or to go about finding a way for families to pay for their children’s education. As mentioned in “Half the Sky”, an American man whose donation directly aided in funding for materials and and facilities. The non obvious thing that caught me by surprise was how much health issues could related to the lack of schooling for children. De-worming or preventing worms in children will help young girls stay in school. The health problems even hinder teachers from going to work. If there is no teacher, there can not be formal education.
ReplyDeleteTourism would bring money to the economy of these African communities. People-first tourism could implement part of the tourism proceeds could go directly towards the education of women. Awareness on the importance of education in parents would also help increase education in young girls. When parents did not go to school do not see the need to send their children. If there was a way to inform parents on the benefits of an education to the health and future of their families more people would make it a priority to send their girls to school.
This chapter discusses very simple solutions on how to get women in undeveloped countries to obtain an education. One idea that was implemented was to simply deworm the students. Proved in the southern US, deworming helps children become more alert and studious. Now there are projects all over the world that provide this service to children so they have a better chance to succeed in education. Another way is to simply donate. One such donation of ten thousand dollars to a small village in China not only built a school but also provided scholarships for local girls around the village. It is known that educating women is a major step in the right direction in battling poverty. Educating current generations now will make the lives of future generations more fulfilling and offer future generations with a greater number of opportunities. Tourism could also have a positive affect on these people. The places that are talked about in this book are usually somewhat rural and secluded from the main city populations. Having trips and tours of these poverty stricken places will help open the eyes of the rest of the world. Some tourists realize that the world is not always pretty and want to see what some populations are going through. Through tourism I believe that donations would be more abundant as well as more money being spent in these communities through tourism dollars.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter 10 in Half the Sky, there were many strategies implemented to facilitate education to girls in developing countries. The first way that was mentioned in the chapter was that they (the authors) were living in China, and they met a young girl who was unable to go to school because she was the oldest and her parents wanted her staying home helping with household duties. In 1990, they wrote an article about Dai Manju, and a reader who felt sorry for the girl's situation wired the village $10,000 to pay for her education, but it ended up doing a lot more than that. He actually meant to donate $100,000 and that completely changed the education system in this Chinese village. Studies have shown that educating girls is one of the most effective ways of fighting poverty. Another strategy to provide education was deworming. The most cost effective way to increase school attendance is to deworm studendts. Intestinal worms affect children's physical and intellectual growth. Out of the 115 million children who dropped out of middle school in Nigeria, 57% were girls.
ReplyDeleteThe efforts being done through donations and other strategies to have better education systems will certainly have a very positive impact on future generations. Whether its schools being built, or donations being given as scholarships, if this trend continues then future generations will also be able to take advantage of these things and get an education.
Tourism could definitely have a role in providing money towards education. Because the story of Ann and Angeline points out that the problems with education were financial and not social, having tourists come to a community and put money into the economy would help education. Just like we have a lottery in NC, and the money goes towards education, these developing countries could also use a system such as this that would help generate money into the education system.
People have donated money to help keep girls in school. It is not expensive to educate and keep kids in school when you break down the cost, but for family who are already financially in a hard place it is a lot. If it comes down to putting food on the table or sending a child to school it is easy to figure out what the best choice is. The problem with that is often girls are penalized the most. Dai Manju is a perfect example of how important education is and if it wasn't for a donation her life could have been completely different. Education is key to success in society. Dai now sends money to her family and they are now one of the richest families in the community. People who are helped by someone and more likely to donate and help others. Also it has been said that people are more likely to help an individual than a group because they can follow that one person and see the benefit of helping them.
ReplyDeleteEducation helps future generations to be more financially stable as well. The book talks about the longer a girl stays in school that more than likely she is less likely to get pregnant at a younger age and is more likely to not have as many children. In addition the higher the level of education the better job a person can get. The better the job and income level the more a person will put into the education of their children.
I think tourism should support education. An industry is more likely to thrive and succeed the better educated the people are.
In Half of the Sky, the 10th chapter talks about several different ways to help promote educating women in underdeveloped countries. The chapter tells us that they attempt to promote this education by providing things such as scholorships to the woman that do well. One of the main reasons these woman do not seek education is because they cannot afford it. Another way that womans' education is being promoted is through the attempt to deworm as many of these woman as possible. By providing these women with better health, it allows them to spend more time in school and less time worrying about their ilness. Education continues to be a problem in under developed countries and new efforts are being made each and every day to improve these circumstances. By educating these woman properly we will enable them to start small businesses within the tourism industry. Helping these woman through people first tourism, donations , and vaccinations will allow these woman to have a much better quality of life.
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