By Kelsi Peace, Managing Editor
At the same time I am scratching the days off my day planner and promising myself languorous afternoons if I can only finish finals week, 19 African countries are scouring resources for a $370-million education funding gap.
Through the World Bank’s Education for All Fast Track Initiative, these countries’ plans for education were endorsed, totaling a whopping $3.75 billion, according to the Web site of One: The Campaign to Make Poverty History.
According to the Web site, the funding gap is only expected to grow as the program endorsed more education plans in more countries.
But one can hardly fault the Fast Track Initiative for endorsing countries with national educational plans when the benefits of education include a myriad of ways to improve quality of life.
Education advocates are reporting a 10 to 20 percent increase in wages per year of education for young women who live in developing countries.
On a continent where AIDS and HIV has run rampant and the world has increased its attention toward eradicating the disease, education could play a key role in combating this problem.
Not only could better access to education prevent this deadly disease, but increased education could also improve economic conditions and overall health, the organization suggests. How ironic that while I am complaining about that final 10-page paper I have due, 72 million children do not have access to education; 33 million of those children live in Africa.
But the international community has sunk its teeth into the issue, and thanks to the Fast Track Initiative, Burkina Faso has more than doubled its school enrollment since 2002, seeing about 550,000 children join the ranks of the educated.
A single program will not be enough to enroll every student who ought to be enrolled, and the United States needs to increase its roll.
As Americans, we live in a country where students take their education so lightly that attendance policies and cell phone restrictions must be implemented to keep students paying attention in the classroom. Clearly, we can afford to help other countries access education if our own approach to it is so casual.
In 2007, Reps. Nita Lowey and Spencer Baucus and Sens. Hillary Clinton and Gordon Smith introduced a bill to include universal, basic education in U.S. foreign policy priorities.
According to www.action.org, the bill authorizes $1 billion next year for global basic education and aims to further the goal of reducing poverty and hunger by 2015. The bill also creates an Education Coordinator, which allows for better oversight of such staggering funds. Right now, the bill is under review in committees – but it could use all the co-sponsors it could get.
In a time where the country is dividing over issues like abortion and war, this non-partisan, universal goal provides a reminder that appeals to my deeply-rooted optimism: We are all working toward improvement.
Take some time between the scramble to buy Scantrons and the frantic cramming to remember that many would count themselves lucky to suffer through an agonizing week of finals. And if you need a study break, write a letter to your state representative and encourage him or her to cosponsor this bill.
Who knows what the world could look like by 2015.
