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With the young of the UK all heading back to school this week, it set me thinking about the attitudes to education in the West and the value it delivers to the youth of today as well as about the massive gulf between what our young take for granted and the reality of life in large areas of the rest of the world.
Whilst a significant proportion of the UK’s school-age children probably views school as a necessary evil to be got through and done with as fast as possible, the majority simply take for granted the accessibility of quality education as a given in our society, together with access to all the equipment and specialist teaching necessary for its delivery. And whilst it is true to say that many inner city urban schools face a number of quality and other challenges, on the whole the young of today in the West have massive opportunities open to them.
Sadly, the same cannot be said for a very large part of the rest of the world and this is especially true in Africa and the Middle East. Worldwide, over 75 million children do not attend school of any kind and of those who do, around one in three will drop out before completing their primary education, usually leaving without the ability to read or count. Of this number a disproportionate number will be girls.The reasons behind this are rooted in a range of issues including cultural, child labour, conflict and poverty.
