Everyone Has The Right to Education

“One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world. These are the words spoken by Malala Yousafzai. Universally, everyone has the right to education. For without education those who have ideas that can change how we think and act will never be able to express them. How can we improve the world without giving everyone the chance to do it. 58 million people around the world don’t have access to education. Thats 58 million minds with so much unused potential that can be used to better us all as a human race. As you can see there is major injustice for those who are poorer especially those living in developing countries, and that all needs to change with the help of you. We need to call on our conscience to deal with this.

Schools in disadvantaged communities can face extra challenges in providing quality education for their students. Did you know that students from low income households are almost 3 years behind, compared to those in school who are from high income households? That is a shocking statistic. Where is the fairness in that? A child’s abilities should not be defined by the amount of money their parents earn or their family background. So why is it that they are so far behind? It could be that they don’t have enough money to buy the correct books, they don’t have the correct environment at home to learn and comprehend what it is that they are learning at school because their parents cannot provide the right structure to enable the children to succeed, also the fact that there is a stigma on those who come from lower income households, Are they ashamed? Do they not believe that they can achieve? Society tends to categories and stereotype us based on our social classes.

In the book To Kill A Mockingbird social class plays a big role in the way a child is seen by the education system. The education system in Macomb is very contradictory and almost backwards in some cases, and this makes a significant point in the ideas of the novel. The school has clearly changed its system from when Jem was the age of Scout, and this does show that things are steadily moving ahead, but it also seems no use as Jem is just as educated as Scout It also seems that it is more to do with your background and therefore family and upbringing, than the school. This is also shown by how everyone is generalised such as the Ewell’s, they are thought of as stupid because they only go to school on the first day.

When a child is given a basic, proper education they are liberated and in extreme cases of poverty even saved, saved in such ways us in our beautiful country would only be able to imagine. In countries like South Sudan little girls younger then you and I are married off to the man with the highest amount of cows to trade to her family for her. The Loreto school Loreto Rumbek are curbing child marriage entirely. When a girl is given an education at this school they are literally saved from an unsightly demise. Their parents sign a document stating that while the girls are receiving an education at Loreto Rumbek they will not marry her off (even though it is just a piece of paper and can very easily be broken it gives the girls a little bit of hope). When a girl graduates from Loreto Rumbek they more often than not go to university where they can get qualifications, meaning they can get a job or career. This all discourages the marriage of the child because when you think about it, if they spend 4 years in high school and they start off in year 8 at the age of 13 she will be 17, plus the 4 or so years at university, that comes to the age of 21. If the average age of child marriage in South Sudan is 15 then thats 6 years of pure freedom, freedom to do what she pleases and get an education. The girl comes out of Loreto Rumbek literate, having so much more of an understanding of the world we live in today and she will feel liberated.”

Works Cited

1. Yousafzai, M., & Lamb, C. (2013). I am Malala: The story of the girl who stood up for education and was shot by the Taliban. Little, Brown and Company.
2. UNESCO. (2015). Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2015: Education for All 2000-2015: Achievements and Challenges. UNESCO Publishing.
3. Chetty, R., Hendren, N., Kline, P., Saez, E., & Turner, N. (2014). Is the United States still a land of opportunity? Recent trends in intergenerational mobility. American Economic Review, 104(5), 141-147.
4. Lareau, A. (2011). Unequal childhoods: Class, race, and family life. University of California Press.
5. Lee, H. (2018). Educational inequality in South Korea: The widening socio-economic status gap in student achievement. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 38(1), 60-75.
6. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). Directed by Robert Mulligan [Motion picture]. United States: Universal Pictures.
7. Nussbaum, M. (2011). Creating capabilities: The human development approach. Harvard University Press.
8. Save the Children. (2021). South Sudan - Education. Retrieved from https://www.savethechildren.net/south-sudan/education
9. Coomaraswamy, R. (2015). Child marriage and the law: Progress and prospects. International Journal of Law, Policy, and the Family, 29(1), 103-121.
10. UNESCO. (2020). Global education monitoring report 2020: Inclusion and education. UNESCO Publishing.