A woman categorising shrimp according to size and quality in Tra Vinh province, Viet Nam.
Photo: Jim Holmes / Pano
Is everyone in the world receiving a good quality education at the moment? No. There are still 100 million children around the world who are receiving no education at all and 60 per cent of these are girls. This is because girls are often needed to help with work in the home or because it is thought less important for girls to go to school than boys.
How can we make sure that everyone receives a good quality education?
There are many ways in which we can help. One way is by making the world trade system fairer for poorer countries.
How does a fairer world trade system help everyone receive a quality education? Making the world trading system fairer would mean that governments of poor countries, and individual families had more money to spend on education. The present unfair world trade system means that governments of poor countries make very little money from trading their goods. Running a good quality education system is expensive and having so little money means many governments cannot even afford to run primary schools, let alone secondary schools. Unfair trade rules also mean that people in living in poverty have less chance to get a job or earn a decent income, and so find it harder to send their children to school.
Why is the world trade system unfair at the moment? First of all, the richer countries give their own farm businesses large amounts of money, known as subsidies, which means they can sell their produce at lower prices. Farmers in poor countries cannot compete, and so lose money and become poorer. European farms, for example, grow very high-cost sugar beet, but thanks to money given by their governments, sell millions of tons of sugar every year, in Europe and abroad. Sugar cane producers in Africa and Latin America produce cheaper sugar but their governments cannot afford to give them money so they lose sales to Europe. Not only that, European governments use trade rules to prevent poorer countries selling more than a small amount of sugar in Europe. Mozambique, one of the poorest countries in the world, could earn £20 million pounds more every year in sugar sales if it was not for these unfair rules.
Second, poorer countries find it hard to sell clothes, shoes and other manufactured goods to Europe and the other rich countries because the richer countries deliberately charge high taxes on these goods in order to keep them out. Even the very poorest countries such as Bangladesh have their exports taxed in this way. Some goods are sold, of course, but the poor countries could sell more and earn a lot more if our governments treated them fairly.
If farms and factories in developing countries could sell more, both at home and abroad, farmers and workers would have more money to send their children to school. Governments there would collect more taxes and that would mean more money for school buildings, for paying teachers and for buying text books.
Many governments, particularly in Africa, also raise money from taxing the goods that come in to their countries from abroad, and this helps pay for schools and hospitals. But the richer countries are putting pressure on poorer countries to stop doing this. The rich countries say that these taxes are bad for development but in reality the richer countries are more interested in their big companies selling more goods and making more money.
Why do poor families struggle to educate their children as a result of unfair world trade?
Governments of poorer countries sometimes pass on the costs of schooling to parents because they do not have enough money to provide free school places. This means many poorer children do not go to school because their parents cannot afford the costs. Even where the government does not charge direct fees, the costs of uniforms, equipment or exam fees can still mean that poor children are excluded.
Many of the poorest families work in jobs (such as farming) where the unfair world trade system means that they cannot earn enough money to live on. For example, Emilia in Honduras lives in a coffee-growing region. The low coffee prices in the world trading system mean that her family cannot afford to pay for her school fees. She has to help her parents pick coffee all day instead of going to school.
Sugar cane cutters in Mozambique, which has been unable to expand sugar production due to limited access to the EU market, and unfair competition from dumped European sugar in Africa.
Photo:Amy Barry / Oxfam
Why is there less of a problem for poor families in the UK? In the UK, primary and secondary schools are free, and poorer families can get help with the cost of uniforms and school dinners.
What happens as a result of children in poorer countries not being able to go to school?
One result is that children of the next generation, like their parents, also grow up without an education. The poorest parents cannot pay for the education of their children, therefore their children grow up without the qualifications or skills they need to get a good job or earn more money. This means that they too will not be able to pay for the education of the next generation of children.
How do governments of poorer countries try to sort out the problem? One way in which the governments of poorer countries try to put more of their money into primary and secondary education is by using money they should be spending on universities and on adult literacy programmes. As a result, universities in particular are having to look for money elsewhere.
Other ways in which governments save money are by paying teachers less for their work, by making classes bigger (often there can be over 100 children to one teacher) or by employing untrained teachers who will not be able to teach as well. All these ways of saving money mean that the quality of education each child receives is not as good. It also means that both teachers and pupils feel bad about their education system and find it hard to make it work.
What needs to be done next? Poorer
countries need a fair global trading system so that people can work their way out of poverty and governments can raise more money to spend on primary and secondary education. This would mean that they would not have to borrow as much money, be given aid money or cut the money they spend on other education programmes such as adult literacy or universities.
Therefore the Global Campaign for Education is pushing for major changes in world trade. First of all richer countries must stop subsidising their farms and then dumping the excess produce on the developing world, where it drives local farmers deeper into poverty. Second, there should be changes to trade rules so that poorer countries are allowed to sell their farm products and manufactured goods in richer countries. Third, the governments of poorer countries should be allowed to tax imports from richer countries in order to pay for basic services such as education.
What else can be done? It is not only having a fairer world trade system which will help all children to have a good education. Among other things, more and better aid from richer governments and debt relief will also help. For more information see our simple guides to Aid and education and Debt payments and education.
