The International Convention on the Rights of the Child guarantees children’s right to education: not an obligation or a responsibility, study is a right denied to many children and young people across the world today. The right to attend school and get an education is essential for a child’s growth and the provision of a brighter future.
There are roughly 750 million individuals worldwide who are unable to read or write. Women make up the majority of them, accounting for around two-thirds of the total. But illiteracy is an issue that affects both boys and girls, both males and girls. Throughout 617 million children and adolescents around the world are believed to be unable to read, write, or do basic arithmetic calculations. There are 387 million youngsters (ages 6 to 11) who are affected by these circumstances. This means that more than half of the world’s children will be deprived of such fundamental information and, as a result, will be functionally illiterate.
There are 766 million individuals worldwide who are illiterate.
67 million of these are boys, primarily girls, aged 5 to 9, with 75% of them living in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. UNESCO has issued a global warning about this dreadful scourge: “Literacy is at the center of all basic education and is essential for achieving goals like poverty eradication, infant mortality reduction, and economic growth.”
Many of the problems that afflict the world today, particularly what we call the “Third World,” are caused by a lack of education. Horrors and abuses often push the subject of study to the background, but they are the right to education and the guarantee of a sustainable development, peace, and democracy. Ignorance is a precondition for the development of hatred and violence; children who are refused access to schools are similarly prohibited from developing, learning, and so changing from their initial state. We must work to ensure that everyone has access to knowledge. Afghanistan, Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Iraq, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and South Sudan are among the twenty countries where the illiteracy rate exceeds half of the population.
Dropout from school
In 2017, over 262 million children and adolescents skipped school. Made up of:
• 64 million primary school students; 61 million lower secondary school students; and 138 million upper secondary school students.
In other words, all of these children will be denied their right to education (data: Unesco).
What are the reasons for this?
They are numerous, well-established, and tough to eliminate. There are no schools, or they are too expensive or too far away. Frequently, it is the parents who do not see the value of education and prefer their children to work from a young age or stay at home to assist them. The females bear the brunt of the repercussions. Many low-income families prefer that their boys attend school. Girls are frequently coerced into forced marriages in order to avoid being a financial burden to their parents.
What are the ramifications?
It belongs to a Cambodian child named Chuon. Her ambition was straightforward: she wanted to be a teacher and help the other girls in her community. Ma Chuon was born into a poor family in the Pursat province’s rural and isolated location. School is too far away and too costly. In these circumstances, her desire is unlikely to come true, and she will be doomed to a life of poverty.
Article 28, paragraph 1 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child states, “States parties acknowledge the right of the child to education.” “States parties should take all reasonable steps to ensure that school discipline is implemented in a manner compatible with the dignity of the child as a human being and in accordance with this Convention,” says paragraph 2.