Writing Feedback / Essay on Education In Developing Countries [8]

Hey guys! This is my first thread as I'm new to the board. I'm Lloyd and you'll probably see my name around here for the next while. I would like to thank those in advance who help constructively criticize my essays!

In the past decade, millions around the world have been pulled out of poverty by economic growth, effective development aid, and sheer hard work due to education (Krishna 1). Today, there are still children in developing countries who are not getting enough academic education (Guttman 1). Poor health care stands in the way of students getting the education they need, as most families suffer in poverty and can't afford to buy medicine (Krishna 1). With education, the increased job opportunity expands, making medicine affordable. Education is imperative for success as learning and education are at the heart of all economic and social development. By learning, individuals are empowered with knowledge and skills to better their lives. A strong education background can beat poverty. Education in developing countries is the leading global concern as there are many barriers preventing students from getting the education they need.

We face a critical issue today: Children are not getting enough education. There are an alarming number of students in developing countries that are not attending school (Guttman 1). Lack of students in school means lack of economic and social prosperity. Education depends to a large extent on ensuring that children, youth, and adults benefit from good quality learning opportunities that allow them a better future. Education is a fundamental skill we must have in our daily lives in order to be successful and to overcome poverty. In 2000, United Nations started "Educational For All". "EFA's agenda consists of binding universal primary education, early childhood education, superior lifelong learning, and literacy (Guttman 49)." This agenda is very important to ensuring full enjoyment of the human right to education and achieving sustainable and fair development. Lourdes de Vera-Mateo, a UNICEF official, reported that "82 percent of children who abandoned their schooling said they cannot afford to buy lunch for cited lack of money for class contributions (Llanesca 1)." With the poverty issue so large it interferes with education, we are responsible to make sure all the students have the supplies needed to go attend school. All cash investments put in now will eventually profit in the future, as educated students will now be able to contribute to society with their academic skills. Universal education has been on the global agenda since the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed free and compulsory education to be a basic human right (Bloom 1). Why aren't any governments doing anything about it? The reason is because they have not seen detailed documents on the globally transformative effects that would follow from educating their citizens with the equivalent of today's primary and secondary education (Bloom 2). A major preventative factor in seeing improved reports of effects of education in youth is due to the expensive and mismanaged healthcare system in many countries.

If affordable healthcare is covered, the increased learning and student population rate will result in a strong economy and prosperous society. Healthcare is arguably the principal barrier in developing countries. The healthcare system is poorly run and can make families go bankrupt due to its high cost. "I found that health and healthcare expenses are the leading cause for people's reversal of fortune." (Krishna 1) Krishna goes on to explain that

In the company of newly poor households in 20 villages of western Kenya, 73 percent referred ill health and high medical costs as the most important cause of their economic deadline. In 36 villages of Gujarat, 88 percent of people who fell into poverty blamed their fortune on health care. 67 percent of recently impoverished people in Peru blamed ill health, inaccessible medical facilities, and high healthcare costs. One major illness in China typically reduces family income by 16 percent...(Krishna 5)

As growth of economy definitely helps lift people out of poverty, governments must stand firm to prevent backsliding of economy by providing affordable, accessible, and reliable healthcare. Governments can learn by educating themselves on the history of several issues in the back and the results.

... At 4 percent, Japan's poverty rate is amongst the lowest in the world. Sustained economic growth undoubtedly helped, but so too did their unique set of policies. Quite early in the country's post-WWII recovery, Japanese officials recognized the critical relationship between illness, healthcare services, and poverty creation. And they responded by making universal healthcare mandatory in the early 1950s (Krishna 4).

Large families exist in developing countries, usually due to the poor health of parents. At frequent times, they are ill and are not able to perform regular duties, so they tend to produce a large family. Their "solution" leads to a bottomless pit. The trouble with this is that a large population uses more natural resources and if in a mismanaged economy, it will only weaken further with resources also becoming scarce. Due to the high cost of healthcare, most citizens are forced to make do with what they have. This is risky and results in a high death rate as safety practices are not promoted (education can help!), and proper tools may not be adequate for their job. With knowledge of education, all these issues can be managed, controlled, and dealt with intelligently.

Every year, about 536,000 women die giving birth. In some poor nations, dying in childbirth is so common that almost everyone has known a victim. Take Sierra Leone, a West African nation with just 6.3 million people: women there have a 1 in 8 chance of dying in childbirth during their lifetime (Vivian 1).

Maternal deaths are only one example. There are many others such as AIDS and Malaria (which is the leading death of children under 5 year olds in developing countries (Oketch 1)). Death and Diseases can cause instability in families and society, and furthermore becomes a barrier to receiving proper education.

Education is imperative for success as learning and education are at the heart of all development. "At the World Economic Forum in January 2005 in Davos, Switzerland, business and political leaders ranked education as a leading global concern, recognizing it as a key to beating poverty (Matsuura 2)." Organizations and governments around the world are all starting to realize that lack of education really is the leading global concern. Take a look at societies throughout history. They have acknowledged the importance of education to human progress. The Book of Instructions helped the Egyptians. Greece's academy of Socrates and Plato taught Greece citizens how to think. The Muslims had their early Quranic schools. We know can refer back to history as we can determine if education really is worthwhile or a waste of time. Recent research shows that cognitive skills are required to make better-educated choices about the HIV/AIDS risk, reducing poverty, health, sanitation and environmental sanitation (Guttman 4). This is why achieving all the Millenium Development Goals - among them reducing poverty, empowering women, improving health, sanitation and environmental management, depends to a large extent on ensuring that children, youth and adults benefit from good quality learning opportunities, enabling them to better the future (Guttman 4). More doctors can improve health standards. More recreational development workers can improve sanitation. More scientists can help reduce environmental mismanagement and provide alternatives. The list goes on.

Education enables human beings to develop their capacities so that they can lead fulfilling and dignified lives. Due to the lack of education in developing countries, families and children suffer from poverty, health care, malnutrition and much more. However, millions of people have been pulled out of poverty in the past decade, and will continue to do so only with our support in the structure of education in developing countries. To defeat the global concern of lack of education in developing countries, we must educate ourselves of the flaws in the system and correct them. "We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build the youth for our future" - Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Writing Feedback / Modernization vs Dependency Theory [3]

Please rip this essay apart! NO MERCY! Thanks :). I need some help with referencing. Do I put the author and page number in brackets and then fully MLA it in Works Citation? What if there are more than two articles written by the same author? Thanks!

Modernization vs. Dependency Theory

For years, researchers and scholars have been wondering why third-world countries are underdeveloped. Today, two popular theories have emerged explaining how the third-world came to be. In Eduardo Galeano's Open Veins in America, he explores the dependency theory, explaining that the result of underdevelopment came from centuries of colonial expansion. The other is the modernization theory, explained by Lawrence Harrison in Development and Underdevelopment. The Political Economy of Global Inequality and Seymour Lipset in Promise of Development. Theories of Change in Latin America. The authors suggest underdevelopment is a result of a traditional society. Both theory authors argue ideas such as the cause of poverty in the third world exists due to structural restraints placed by European powers. They also examine the conquest led by Europeans in the 16th century to other countries to extort valuable resources from them, and the idea that third-world countries have been intimately involved with the capitalism system for centuries; involvement has been the cause of its ruin. The authors attempt to deconstruct the arguments, however, the most logical argument is that the origins of third world nations current underdevelopment dates back to the exploitation as a European colony.

Causes of poverty are due to structural restraints placed on the third world by European powers. Galeano describes the structural restraints as unequal exchange. He continues to state the declining "terms of trade" as the price of exports from the third world are decreasing, while prices from industrialized (developed) countries are increasing. This effect creates a circular trap as wages in third world countries are low, which declines the export prices, while wages in richer countries are increasing, which cause increases in the price of industrial goods. This means underdeveloped countries need to constantly increase their yields and exports for their profits to stay the same. However, Harrison/Lipset argue that the cause of poverty in the third world are blamed on their cultures and values; tradition. They say the view of traditional life is a life all integrated in the spirit, the family, the larger group, and the work tasks all working together, forming a whole. It is a poor, subsistence life from an economic point of view. It is a life of no hope of creating income, or accumulation of wealth. They believe this problem can be solved if the poor countries of the world can succeed in the transformation of traditional to modern (developed). They also suggest that the traditional society can follow the footsteps of those who became modern. Poor countries can avoid the mistakes pioneers made on the path to modernization. To follow the footsteps, the underdeveloped countries would have to fast track through 500 years of development, which would involve conquest, plundering and invading other countries for natural resources to be exported back to their native land.

In the 16th century, Europe led a conquest to other countries to extort valuables. Galeano explains that British capitalism led to the domination of plantation systems overseas that was purely used for exporting it to developed nations. Plantations met no local need. This led to another decline of terms of trade. Europeans looking to make profits came to control the rest of the world-sometimes with colonial empires, to take advantage of cheap labor for raw materials. With economic power and no legal administrative control, they were able to strike an unequal bargain with third-world farmers. A historical example draws on the poor Northeast of Brazil. Before it was invaded, it was once the richest area, but the soil is now ravished and eroded by aggressive planting of sugarcane to multiply profits. Sugar had destroyed the Northeast, now the most underdeveloped area in the Western Hemisphere. Today, less than 1/5 of the area is used for growing sugar under cheap labor. The rest is not used at all because the soil is severely damaged. Since sugarcane is the only crop grown, farmers must pay premium prices for imports, which they can barely afford. Harrison/Lipset say science and entrepreneurial spirit combined in England to produce little pockets of productivity. The engine of England's economic growth was capitalism. They defined capitalism as a market in which sellers and buyers come together on a voluntary basis to exchange goods and services in return for money, at a price. Because of this, workers in developing countries were and still are getting pennies a day for their work. They were exploited.

Third-world countries have been intimately involved with the capitalism system for centuries, and involvement has been the cause of ruin. Galeano supports this argument by saying that the poverty of the third world is not traditional, nor accidental. He believes the state of underdeveloped countries is absolutely necessary in order to support the richness of the developed countries. The industrial world requires cheap raw materials from the third world in order to keep profits from sold products high. Expansion of the industrial world consequently shaped the countries now known as the third world, making it incapable of balanced development. They are not traditional, they are just stuck in the capitalist system of developing countries. The regions now most underdeveloped and poverty-stricken, in the past have had the greatest exports and enjoyed periods of booms. Calling on the example of Potosi, now one of the most underdeveloped regions in the world, it was once the most valuable country full of natural resources. Once an exporting giant to Spain, its five thousand tunnels dug for the Spaniards are now empty. Eight million Indians died during the silver extraction of tunnels, and the amount removed from the country is about 5 billion in today's dollars. Spanish colonial expansion of Potosi (present day Bolivia) made their wealth by exporting the valuable minerals to Europe, and left the country when there were no more left. The Potosi economy crashed with nothing to support it, as minerals were out of the currency system. Harrison/Lipset and the Modernization school sees capitalism as a creative force responsible for the developed countries' growth and is capable of bringing the third world up to higher standards of living. The only problem, they say, is that their methods have not really been tried in the third world. Modernization school sees the rich countries as being the salvation of the poor. Galeano argues against this, saying slave trade and monoculture led to low export prices. The success of the capitalist system largely depended on labor earnings in the third-world to be low, so that imports into the core countries could be cheap and profits kept high. Galeano and the Dependency school see rich countries as being the main obstacle to the well being of the poor.

In conclusion, the modernization theory is only optimistic and full of contradictions. It is important to understand the history of a situation so a more realist approach can be taken to solve it. Dependency theory explores the history of countries and colonization. Attacking the issue of structural restraints on third world, the 16th century European conquest, and the intimacy of capitalism in third-world countries, Galeano has been able to provide a clear explanation of how third world countries came to be underdeveloped. Now that the history is understood, it is possible to work with it and correct its faults so that the third-world will not be stuck anymore.