Relevance for Development and Poverty Reduction
The Beginning of the End of Poverty
Education is important to escape the poverty. Source: Ulrich Jahn
Educational poverty is a vicious circle. If you are poor, you rarely - if ever - go to school, and if you never go to school, you stay poor. A good education lays the foundations for improving your own life. Globally, the paramount aim is to halve poverty by the year 2015. This was the global challenge that the heads of state and government set themselves in September 2000 at the United Nations Millennium Summit in New York. Education is at the core. Accordingly, this has been set as the second of the eight Millennium Development Goals: by 2015 all children, all over the world, should be guaranteed the opportunity to complete a primary school education.
Education provides greater opportunities for employment and income, and opens up ways of developing one's own talents and interests. Education increases self-awareness among children and young adults, stimulates their social competence and imparts key practical life skills. Education gives people a voice, enabling them to make themselves heard in society. People who can read and write and have knowledge are able to assert their personal rights and to play an active role in social and political processes. A solid basic education also improves health and nutritional habits, and helps to reduce birth rates. Furthermore, it fosters environmental awareness, making it a keystone for the sustainable use of natural resources.
Education Is Worth the Effort
Education not only helps individuals to progress, it also benefits the community as a whole; when the better educated earn a higher income the state's tax revenue also rises. In addition, well-trained people work to higher standards and boost productivity. It has now been shown that a higher standard of education has a direct positive impact on economic growth. The state can achieve the most benefits - for every individual and for society as a whole - when it invests in primary education and, as a second step, in vocational training.
The third Millennium Goal goes one step further; it focuses additionally on strengthening the position of girls and women. The aim is to eliminate the disadvantages that they face at all levels of education, from primary school to university, by 2015 at the latest. It is evident all over the world that primary education and subsequent vocational training (including tertiary education) for girls and women are crucial for a country's (economic) development.
Girls and women who have been allowed to learn will, of course, also send their own children to school. A solid basic education strengthens women's role in the family. They make sure their families are better fed, and pay attention to hygiene. Educating girls furthermore has the effect of improving health and, above all, of reducing the birth rate. This, in turn, improves the quality of life, as well as the family's income - a key building block in the fight against poverty.
As well as the UN's Millennium Goals, there are other international agreements on education. These include the "Education for All" action plan, which was adopted by the World Education Forum held in Dakar in Senegal in April 2000. It contains six objectives that address the issues of early childhood care and education, literacy rates, learning needs, gender disparities and education quality. These objectives have huge importance for the educational sector. Progress is reviewed annually by an expert commission and the results are made public. The upshot is that, although advances have been made in these areas, some countries will not achieve these objectives by 2015. Considerable effort and concerted action are therefore still needed, both on our part and in the partner countries.
Only then will we achieve and sustain education for all and, in doing so, make a contribution to the reduction of poverty.
Last updated: July 2011
