The country of India is known for its bright festivals and unique architecture. Since its rise as a global power, many people have assumed that the wealth of the country has boosted the livelihoods of the people living there. Unfortunately, more than 80% of people live on less than $3 per day, and the top 1% own more than half of the country’s wealth. For perspective, 16 people in India are as wealthy as 600 million people—and that means that for many, opportunities as basic as learning to read and right are far out of their reach.

Why Children In India Need Your Help To Get Education 

India is well on its way to becoming the country with the largest, youngest workforce ever seen; half of its population is under the age of 25. If these young people are not able to complete an education, that’s half of India that will be unable to perform entire sectors of jobs. An educated population is good for a country—and for the people who were able to attend school.

But why do children withdraw from schools after only a few years? Why don’t they simply stay in school? To understand how we can help, first, we must understand why schooling is such a challenge.

Here are the reasons why children in India have been dragged out of school. 

The Gender Bias  

One of the main drivers of dropouts is gender. Daughters are expected to help in the kitchen and at home, while sons can go to school. In addition, lack of access and affordability to feminine products mean that girls who make it past the first year or two or schooling drop out once they reach menstruation (at a rate as high as 57%). Young arranged married to older men has the same effect.

Uninteresting Methods of Teaching  

India continues to struggle with the methods its teachers use—likely a result of those teachers themselves not receiving sufficient education or income to improve the classroom. Blackboards and chalk are still the standard method, and without engaging and comprehensive teaching tools, many students don’t learn as much as they could. This leads to the feeling that their time would be better spent earning some income for their family in poverty, and so they drop out to do labor jobs. And despite the country’s booming growth over the last 15 years, the majority of it has been jobless creation of further wealth for the rich, which never improves the lives of those in the slums who do not have access to that private money.

Unavailability of Resources 

Because the 1% control so much of the nation’s wealth, very little is sent to schools. This means that government schools in the slums are in disrepair, and teachers do not have access to critical tools such as multiple copies of textbooks and workbooks. And with some schools being too far for many low-income families to reach on foot, education is out of the question for a large number of households.

What Can We Do to Bring a Child to School 

As a charity, CFTW is working hard to ensure that underprivileged children in third-world countries receive the education they need to pull their families out of poverty and have a chance at the life they deserve. We pay school fees, build schools, and more to spread education across every corner of the world. 

Ajitha, one young woman that we have sponsored for three years, is closer to graduation than the vast majority of her female peers due to our support—and we hope to see her graduate and find success. Her success directly impacts the wellbeing of her family and her country of India.

Just $25 can help to educate the children of India who do not have the access to schooling that they deserve. You likely can’t go to India, Africa, and other struggling areas to teach children yourself, so let CFTW do it on your behalf. For the cost of a couple cups of coffee, you can help us to sponsor more children and build more schools. Donate to give the lifelong gift of education.

Introduction  

Across the globe, women often find themselves in underprivileged positions when it comes to education. Many women are denied basic access to schooling, and with this comes a lack of ability to read or write. Even if a family contains a man who is literate, women being unable to perform these tasks has wide-ranging impacts on communities and nations.

Some countries continue to struggle with literacy in general; less than 20% of Niger’s population can read and write, and Ethiopia remains under half. Men globally lead women by as much as 8% in terms of literate population, and only approximately 11% of women in African and Indian communities have received sufficient education to read and write.

Developing greater literacy among women is a crucial issue, not only because equal access to education should be a basic human right but also because literacy improves life outcomes. When most nations are made of somewhere around 50% women—and those women are uneducated—the average education level of the population decreases, and problems that could be solved with enough scientists and researchers may be neglected.

Similarly, many women who cannot read or write live in impoverished communities, particularly in Africa and India. If these women were educated, they could turn their abilities into income generation and provide better outcomes for themselves and their families. This would boost their entire community and create positive influences.

Causes and After-Effects of Low Female Literacy

Across the world, women face many challenges in seeking equal education. In areas suffering from poverty, many women cannot spare the time to attend schooling when they must help to care for family—whether their own children or their siblings and older relatives. In India, public schooling facilities do not have separate bathrooms for women; as a result, as many as 23% of girls stop their education once they reach puberty since they do not have the resources they need to cope with menstruation at school. 

For some, physical access to a school is a problem when the only location is far away from their homes. For others, child marriage places a burden on their ability to continue their education. The reasons that women are globally less literate are many, and the effects are lasting.

Women who did not attend schooling tend to raise female children who will also drop out of schooling. This keeps families in a cycle with little to no upward mobility or improvement in their circumstances, as education is not opening the way to greater income opportunities. A nation with half of its population unable to reach their full potential cannot solve problems with the same speed, efficacy, and utility as a nation with a higher literacy rate. In fact, if India were to improve learning outcomes for women and encourage females to study in order to join the workforce like their male counterparts, the country could expect an estimated $770 billion growth in the GDP in the next five years. 

What Can WE Do?

Those of us who have been raised literate—and you have, if you are reading this—may struggle to understand what we can do to bring necessary education to young women around the world. Women in Africa and India continue to struggle to attend schooling due to a number of issues that may seem simple to solve, such as providing needed menstrual products, building schools close to communities, and prohibiting female children from being responsible for housework for the entire day. However, these issues are more complex than they may appear, and many of the communities struggling with this problem live on less than $2 per day—not enough income to generate substantive change for themselves.

Instead, it is primarily the role of NGOs and charitable organizations to lend a helping hand to improve outcomes for these young women. CFTW is one organization that is passionate about providing support to the whole person, not just by offering financial assistance and education but also spiritual healing and mental help. CFTW has been hard at work building schools so that more students have greater access; these schools have appropriate facilities, such as separate bathrooms, to encourage young women to continue attendance.

If you would like to do your part to help solve the problem of female literacy around the world, consider a donation to charitable organizations like CFTW. If you are not in a financial position to make this contribution, you can also make a difference by volunteering your time or offering a needed service that you are skilled at so that charities can spend time accomplishing their goals for these young women. 

Around the world, people of all ages feel the effects of an educated society—or the lack thereof. In third world countries in particular, education is often viewed as more of a privilege unattainable by many than a right for all. A number of common undertones inform why academic achievement is out of reach for the majority of third world residents; the good news is that by understanding what causes educational inequality and lack of access, charities and kindhearted people around the world can work to fix this situation and improve the lives of people around the world.

Funding

One of the primary challenges facing children seeking to attend school is funding. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that all children, regardless of financial status, should have access to education. This has prompted schools around the world to reduce or even eliminate school fees, but this is not yet ubiquitous. Many schools in third world countries continue to require fees in order to attend, and for families at or below the poverty level, this may be a bridge too far.

Even if the school itself does not charge a fee, compulsory items such as pens and notebooks can place a severe financial burden on low-income families that may prevent them from being able to afford schooling. And because many children in third world countries are relied upon as an additional source of income, schooling means not only losing a portion of an already small income (as one worker takes up education) but also paying additional fees for the schooling itself.

Resources

Many third world countries struggle to offer appropriate educational resources. In one out of every three countries, less than 75% of teachers are sufficiently trained, and classrooms are either nonexistent or severely underfunded in many locations. Some schools in education-sparse countries like Malawi lack basic amenities like running water or toilets, and as many as 130 students may be in one classroom together.

A lack of Learning materials is also a significant contributor to the education crisis. Outdated textbooks are common, and in some countries like Cameroon, there are as many as 13 students to every one textbook. Teachers are responsible for supplying their own workbooks and other core materials, and in countries where these teachers likely did not receive sufficient education themselves, they may be no better off financially than their students. 

Unfortunately, most third world countries have little or no allocation of government money toward education, which places a high demand on foreign aid. Despite this, only 20% of global educational aid goes to low-income countries. However, small contributions can make a world of difference; it currently costs $1.25 per day to send a child to school for 13 years. If each country were able to allocate just 15 more per child, many more individuals would be in a financial situation to attend schooling. This is where the comprehensive work of charities and generous donors comes in, to cover the gaps that low-income countries are unable to bridge themselves. Just 15 cents per day amounts to less than $55 per year to grant access to education for a child.

Exclusion

One of the primary drivers behind increasingly poor education in third world countries is the variety of factors that drive exclusion and inequality in schooling. What immediately comes to mind is likely the gender divide, which sees fewer girls attending school due not only to gender bias, but also to lack of access to critical products like menstrual pads that allow them to attend with dignity. One in three girls marries before the age of 18 in the developing world, which typically requires them to drop out of school if they did attend in the first place.

In addition, distance to schooling or general school availability in zones of conflict also impact access to academia. And because many poverty-stricken households are rural, this issue only compounds for those most at risk. Disabled children also face an uphill battle to attend schooling; up to 95% of children with disabilities in the world’s poorest countries never attend school at all. Discrimination and lack of proper training for teachers means that disabled students who do make it to the classroom are suspended or expelled more than twice as often as their non-disabled peers.

What to Do

The global education crisis still has a long way to go before equal academic opportunities are presented to all people of all geographical locations and genders. Change cannot come on its own, and that is why charities rely on people like you to share a little of their good fortune. Even a small donation can mean the difference between an educational opportunity for a child and a missed chance at a better outcome in life.