• By Rawat Admin
• In Academic,
• Posted February 26, 2018
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Poverty: Effects of Poverty on Education

Poverty: Shocking Effects of Poverty on Education Poverty has been known to have core effects on education amongst children. It however has both positive and negative effects on these children, though the negative ones for outweigh the positive effects. Children from poor families receive a poor level of education as compared to those in families that are well off financially. In addition to this, chances of children in poor families enrolling in a class are dim, as the parents may depend on charity or bursaries for their children to go to school. Even though parents from these poor families strive to educate their children, these children get the lowest quality of education and eventually drop off from class. This is because the parents may not be able to sustain the high price of education. Like we mentioned above, poverty has both positive and negative effects on education. These effects are discussed below.

Negative Effects of Poverty on Education

1. Low performance in Class: A private research on a child’s performance based on their family backgrounds, children from poor background tend to perform poorly in class. This is because their attendance rate in class may be reduced due to the times they have to go back home for school fees. Recovering from the lost time due to absenteeism is almost impossible, because the other children have moved forward. It is very truly said: “The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.”
2. Low level of concentration among children due to hunger: Concentrating in a class with an empty stomach is almost impossible. Children from poor families may be forced to face the night without food, or even wake up and not have any breakfast to take as they head to class. With an empty stomach, the child will not be able to concentrate in class and may even doze off in class. Although the child may be able to perform even better than the other children in the class, these children cannot said through to colleges or even universities.

3. Early pregnancies: Early unprecedented pregnancies among girls in poor families have driven many out of school. Some of these children may be forced to have unprotected sex at tender ages in exchange for money when the pregnancy sets in, they cannot access professional guidance and counseling as their “rich” counterparts would, thus being forced to terminate their journey in education. It is well said by Dalai Lama “when educating the minds of our youth, we must not forget to educate their hearts.”
4. Accessibility to educational institutions: Commuting from home to school can be a challenge among children from poor backgrounds. Under most circumstances, most children are forced to walk to and from school, thus making it difficult to continue with education. This tends to kill many of these children’s hopes and dreams, as many fall back one after the other.

Positive effects of poverty on Education

There are children from poor backgrounds who are geniuses in nature, and perform better than their peers. These children tend to top each class examination or evaluations, and have a bright future of only they can get funding to continue with their children. The children from a poor background works harder in class than the others knowing that, it is his or her chance to make a different in family and uplift his siblings. Poverty is the driving factor that makes this child work hard, thus be able to perform well in class, hence finally landing a well-paying job. In the words of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam “Some of the brightest minds in the country can be found on the last benches of the classroom.”