Increasing Access to Education in Developing Countries
GRC 2023 Global Essay Competition Top 30
By Erin O'Reilly
Children across many underdeveloped and developing nations around the globe today have limited access to quality education, which often puts them at a disadvantage in the job market. Lack of education keeps these low-income countries from improving the lives of their people, keeping them trapped in a society built around manual labour and destitution. Imagine a world where this isn’t the case—a world where the underprivileged have access to high-quality education through videos in their native languages. Imagine an educational Netflix.
The Problem
Millions of children around the globe have limited educational opportunities due to the underdevelopment of their countries[1]. “[two-thirds] of people facing extreme poverty”[2] are stuck in impoverished agricultural areas that rely on good weather and large crop yields. These kids shouldn’t have to pay the price of their country’s poorly organised educational system. To worsen this, a significant consideration we have to take into account in our solution is the limited access to the Internet; UNICEF revealed that “less than 1 in 20 school-age children in low-income countries have internet connection”[3]. In the absence of these services that link everyone in the world, the local population is harmed by their social isolation as they don't have access to education and opportunities to self-study. However, not only do the local people have to deal with unlivable wages[4], but gender inequality, lack of schools and geographical barriers, too. This cycle of deprivation is never-ending if younger generations cannot become educated[5].
The Solution
Hundreds of languages have arisen across the world, providing linguistic barriers, which diminishes the ease of providing aid to secluded nations. Therefore, part of our solution must consider these different languages. With the power of artificial intelligence, we can create a live translator that rephrases the lecturer’s words into the student’s native language and plays it back so they can hear it and learn from the highest quality of education possible. Although students will have to log in to see the courses available online, after deciding on their class of choice, they can download videos ahead of time. This means that it reduces the time students travel to gain access to education, and after they watch the video, they can show it to others, too.
The second function is just as significant. Speaking English is an essential skill in the status quo as it is the base language of international business[6]. Once the student understands the lecturer's lesson, they should be able to learn a new language simultaneously. This would be done through a sentence-by-sentence breakdown of what the lecturer is explaining in both the student’s native language and English. Increased international work is inevitable as speaking more languages reduces labour immobility. Speaking new languages is also crucial as it allows the marginalised population to become more competitive in today’s global society. This benefits the students and the country alike as if the labour force receives higher-paying work, which is ensured as they would be more likely to have international work, then the government would benefit through the multiplier effect[7].
The Methodology
There are several reasons why a student is not able to learn a subject: the parents may not be able to afford to send their children to school, “traditional gender stereotypes”[8] might prioritise male education[9], or there could be no physical schools available. If a professor makes a video explaining a topic that the student requires, then this child can learn via artificial intelligence, translating what he explains live so they can hear it in their own language. Secondly, this virtual platform would then have a side-by-side analysis of each word the lecturer says in both English and their native language to learn English.
Conclusion
Education is a fundamental component in improving the quality of life of millions of underprivileged children across the globe. It opens doors to better jobs, increases quality of life and even grants you the opportunity to provide for your loved ones. Thus, education is the necessary tool to break children out of poverty. Considering we live in a society based on specialisation, without education, children are forced to go into low-paid work. With education, children are often able to stop working in agricultural industries and improve their quality of life. With the power of artificial intelligence, we will be able to provide aid to those who need it most and increase educational standards in impoverished areas, making them more capable of getting high-paying jobs.
Bibliography
Anon. 2017. “Why girls around the world are still denied an equal chance of education.” Theirworld, July 26, 2017. https://theirworld.org/news/why-girls-are-still-denied-equal-chance-of-education/.
Anon. 2023. “How does education affect poverty? It can help end it.” Concern Worldwide. https://concernusa.org/news/how-does-education-affect-poverty/.
Carden, Art. 2008. “Why Are Wages Low in Developing Countries? | Art Carden.” Mises Institute, December 1, 2008. https://mises.org/library/why-are-wages-low-developing-countries.
Francis, Vicki. n.d. “Education in the Developing World.” The Human Journey. Accessed December 10, 2023. https://humanjourney.us/health/education-in-the-developing-world/.
Md, Kazi, and Mukitul Islam. 2018. “Gender stereotypes and education: A comparative content analysis of Malaysian, Indonesian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi school textbooks.” NCBI. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5774688/.
Raine, Paul. 2012. “Why is English the dominant world language?” blog.jobs.ac.uk. https://blog.jobs.ac.uk/tefl-journey/why-is-english-the-dominant-world-language/.
UNICEF. n.d. “Two thirds of the world's school-age children have no internet access at home, new UNICEF-ITU report says.” UNICEF. Accessed December 10, 2023. https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/two-thirds-worlds-school-age-children-have-no-internet-access-home-new-unicef-itu.
United Nations. 2023. “Extreme Poverty in Developing Countries Inextricably Linked to Global Food Insecurity Crisis, Senior Officials Tell Second Committee | UN Press.” UN Press, October 11, 2023. https://press.un.org/en/2023/gaef3590.doc.htm.
[1] Francis, Vicki. n.d. “Education in the Developing World.” The Human Journey. Accessed December 10, 2023. https://humanjourney.us/health/education-in-the-developing-world/ .
[2] United Nations. 2023. “Extreme Poverty in Developing Countries Inextricably Linked to Global Food Insecurity Crisis, Senior Officials Tell Second Committee | UN Press.” UN Press, October 11, 2023. https://press.un.org/en/2023/gaef3590.doc.htm .
[3] UNICEF. n.d. “Two thirds of the world's school-age children have no internet access at home, new UNICEF-ITU report says.” UNICEF. Accessed December 10, 2023. https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/two-thirds-worlds-school-age-children-have-no-internet-access-home-new-unicef-itu .
[4] Carden, Art. 2008. “Why Are Wages Low in Developing Countries? | Art Carden.” Mises Institute, December 1, 2008. https://mises.org/library/why-are-wages-low-developing-countries .
[5] Anon. 2023. “How does education affect poverty? It can help end it.” Concern Worldwide. https://concernusa.org/news/how-does-education-affect-poverty/ .
[6] Raine, Paul. 2012. “Why is English the dominant world language?” blog.jobs.ac.uk. https://blog.jobs.ac.uk/tefl-journey/why-is-english-the-dominant-world-language/ .
[7] “a phenomenon whereby a given change in a particular input, such as government spending, causes a larger change in an output, such as gross domestic product.” - Oxford Languages
[8] Md, Kazi, and Mukitul Islam. 2018. “Gender stereotypes and education: A comparative content analysis of Malaysian, Indonesian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi school textbooks.” NCBI. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5774688/ .
[9] Anon. 2017. “Why girls around the world are still denied an equal chance of education.” Theirworld, July 26, 2017. https://theirworld.org/news/why-girls-are-still-denied-equal-chance-of-education/ .
