Achieving Stable Enrollment: Universal Primary Education

1938 Words4 Pages

The biggest challenge facing Millennium Development Goal Number Two is achieving and maintaining a stable enrollment rate. Millennium Development Goal Number Two is focused on achieving universal primary education. With so many children not attending, they have no chance at making it out of a life of poverty. If more kids enroll and eventually complete school they will know the benefit of schooling and encourage others to attend, especially their own kids. This will also give them a competitive advantage over kids that do not have as much schooling. Achieving stable enrollment can be as simple as a free primary education. Reaching out to females, dropped out, or rural children would help enrollment too. Also the access to post primary and secondary school has to be increased. If kids have the incentives for going to school or free schooling, the world would see many more getting a good education and making their way out of poverty filled life.

One of the hardest challenges of getting kids into schools is the cost. Many parents who live on less than $1.25 a day do not have the funds to pay for their kids to go to school. Often if they do have a little extra money they are more likely to send the males to school over the females. This is because the females are viewed as the homemaker and that is how the parents grew up, so they are passing this tradition on to their kids. Sometimes the kids are needed to work or help support the family and these families count on their children’s minimal income, otherwise they will not have enough money for food (Blaney Lecture). These are the two main problems in the home setting facing children.

Finding teachers who are technically qualified to teach is tough. Educators sometimes only have the ...

... middle of paper ...

...le

Development.” The Journal of Pan African Studies Vol 2, No 8.

Richardson, Philip. 2011. “A Proposal for Improving Access to Secondary Education Through

Innovative Self Study Access Systems.” Center for African Affairs and Global Peace: Africa Policy Watch 7.

UNESCO. 2010. “Adult and Youth Literacy: Global Trends in Gender Parity.” UNESCO

Institute for Statistics.

UNFPA. 2007. “MDG2: Achieve universal primary education.” United Nations Population

Fund.

USAID. 2008. “Africa Education Initiative (AEI).” United States Agency for International

Development.

UN Millennium Project. 2005. “Forging an international compact for education: roles and

responsibilities of donors and developing countries.” United Nations Millennium Project.

USA One. 2011. “Issue Brief: Education.” USA One. http://www.one.org/c/us/issuebrief/93/

(October 4, 2011).

Open Document