Education And Literacy: The Importance Of Education

Many students complain about the stresses of studying and completing assignments on time. Little do they realize how many other children and adolescents would jump at the opportunity to receive schooling. According to Wendy Kopp, the CEO and co-founder of a global network of organizations focused on educational expansion, 250 million children around the world are not likely to gain basic literacy and numeracy skills. This problem is not restricted to children, either. There are millions of adults - the majority women - who are in need of education, whether it is literacy and numeracy or basic life skills. Although these people are from different countries, their “fates are interconnected - our economic prosperity, environmental sustainability, public safety, and health. . . . When educational disparities widen in one corner of the world, hopelessness festers. . . ” (Kopp). Education has a far-reaching influence, across every land and in every aspect of life. Furthermore, education has been declared a human right by the United Nations in 1948 (General Assembly). Although great strides have been made in making education more

According to Paul Collier, a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Oxford, “each year of education reduces the risk of conflict by around twenty percent” (Collier 5). On a similar note, having a secondary school enrollment rate just ten percent higher than the average decreases the risk of war by three percent (“The Benefits of Education”). Not to mention, the average gross domestic product grows by .37 percent for every additional year of schooling. In contrast, in regions where most children are uneducated, “the lack of schooling poor education . . . greatly impede the social and economic development of these countries” (“Right to Education”). With less people pursuing a higher education or professional occupation, advances in any field slow