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Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Education Stops Global Poverty
By Roxanne Allen And Louisa Barkalow
Albuquerque RESULTS
A, B, C, D, E, F, G... Seventy-five million points of light are out.
Seventy-five million children, most of them girls, have no access to free public education. No ABCs, no 1-2-3. No school today ... or tomorrow ... or possibly ever. Seventy-five million tiny eyes times 2 cannot read. Seventy-five million fingers times 10 cannot add or subtract or write their own name because they have no access to basic primary education.
Even worse, a quarter billion children never make it on to secondary or high school, and as adults more than 700 million are unable to read — condemning them to lives of limited options and vulnerability, which their children will in turn inherit.
This kind of "power outage" is a tragedy, but because it takes place in remote corners of the world, it is difficult to call in to report the problem. Greg Mortenson, author of "Three Cups of Tea" and now "Stones into Schools," has changed that. He has inspired the reading world with a stunning description of the education "outage" in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and a vision of the difference access to education can make.
During his recent visit to Albuquerque and in his books, Mortenson described spending the last 12 years supporting the building of schools in remote parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. His stories highlight the thirst for education that exists in areas where it is not easily available. And with each school he builds, the transformational quality of education becomes more evident.
Afghanistan and Pakistan aren't the only areas where free primary and secondary education are not the norm. Throughout the developing world, school attendance is inhibited for many reasons. Access to basic education, on the other hand, offers the most complete strategy available for improving lives of people in impoverished communities. Education for girls in particular pays off handsomely — as Mortenson said, "Educate girls, change the world!" Girls who have even a fifth-grade education earn 20 percent higher wages over their lifetimes, have 10 percent fewer children, and of those, 10 percent fewer die before age 5.
Education has been called a "social vaccine" against HIV/AIDS, with 50 percent lower infection rates for girls who complete primary education. Each year a boy stays in school lowers his likelihood of becoming a child soldier by 20 percent.
The eight Millennium Development Goals, adopted in the 1990s by both developed and undeveloped countries around the world to break the back of extreme poverty, include education for all by the year 2015. We can see progress — for instance, the number of children not in primary school has dropped from 131 million to 75 million, but more resources are needed to meet the goal. As a candidate, President Obama pledged to help create a Global Fund for Education by endowing it with $2 billion. Momentum is building.
The World Cup soccer tournament this year will have as its theme "1 Goal: Education for All." Major industrialized countries are ready to contribute as well, and education is already the primary focus of many of the developing countries.
Now we need U.S. leadership to fulfill the potential of the global fund.
Patterned on the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, the Global Fund for Education will rely on the ingenuity and resources of local communities to deal with education needs in the most appropriate ways, engage civil society and encourage democratic institutions and provide for accountability and support for this massive undertaking.
The Global Fund for Education will ignite the 75 million points of light and keep untold millions of dreams alive in the coming years. Congress should take the president up on his idea this year and allocate the $2 billion needed to jump start the Global Fund for Education. Greg Mortenson has made a huge difference by building fewer than 100 schools. Imagine the impact of thousands of schools and millions of children with hope and confidence in the future.
Albuquerque RESULTS is a nonprofit committed to creating the public and political will to end poverty.
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