Social Projects Aiming to Improve Education in Developing Countries

In most developing countries, very few children graduate from their secondary schools. Many don’t even get the chance to finish their primary school education. For this reason, many projects focusing on education have emerged over the years.

They aim to improve education sectors in emerging countries to ensure that all children have access to a quality learning experience. When more kids have access to affordable schooling, they have higher chances of improving their livelihood in the future.

For instance, with increased internet connectivity, e-learning has expanded tremendously. The same way gamers can play their favorite games on sites like Cash, children in the most remote parts of the world can access learning resources online.

What is Ailing Education in these Countries?

There are various reasons why kids drop out of school. The most obvious one is the difficulty in raising money for schooling. School fees include expenses for lunch, examination fees, and the cost of uniforms. Therefore, even if the tuition fees are scrapped, money is still needed to foot the other expenses.

Often the quality of education in developing countries may not meet the threshold, forcing the parents to get their children additional tutoring so they may pass their exams. This adds to the list of ever-growing expenses. Another reason children drop out is to help contribute toward the family income.

A large percentage of families in poorer nations live below the poverty line. This means that children may often have to forego school and help raise their income to ensure they have enough food to sustain themselves. In most developing countries, job prospects are poor. So even if you get to continue to secondary school, your chances of getting a job are not significantly improved.

In most poor regions, a large majority of the people cannot secure formal employment. Most of them support themselves primarily through either subsistence-level trading or agriculture. The education programs in most of these countries take up the traditional western education models, which emphasize science, math, social studies, and language.

Most topics lack any relevance to children’s lives. Therefore if you are schooling there, you might not be equipped with the financial literacy to manage your meager resources or the guidance to create job opportunities for yourself and others.

An Intervention

Social projects started by NGOs have always played a part in improving and growing the education sector in the developing world. Such organizations work on the principle that students don’t need to be equipped with mere academic skills but rather social and life skills. These skills are more effective at improving children’s well-being, as well as financial prospects.

These skills include; entrepreneurial skills and financial literacy, maintenance of health and its management, as well as administrative abilities, including; teamwork, project management, and problem-solving. Research done over several years has revealed the fault in the education systems in the first world and developing countries.

The projects have visited numerous government, nongovernment and private schools, and teacher training programs. Extensive talks with stakeholders have provided an opportunity to give students a better quality of education.

A New Education Model?

This may be the answer to changing from failing education systems to ones that actually work for these countries’ citizens. A viable new model should combine traditional academic skills with essential health, administrative and financial skills.

It can be delivered through the already existing school system through the help of educators and teachers. The goal of schooling should also shift. Rather than focusing on students’ achievement of the standard outcome, it should focus on impacting their social and economic well-being positively.

For this to even be possible, there should be a significant change in the curriculum’s content and pedagogy. First, the health and entrepreneurship modules can be made mandatory in the curriculum component of all primary-level students. Second, learning should involve methods focused on the students.

A learner-focused method would require the students to solve difficult problems and manage their projects in groups. This approach will inculcate self-efficacy as a critical foundation of a positive livelihood. The health curriculum will equip students with knowledge on preventing illnesses, caring for those who are unwell, and advice on obtaining medical care.

An entrepreneurship curriculum equips children with the financial knowledge necessary in today’s world. This combination of student empowerment, provision of relevant content, and practical implementation of this content will be very beneficial in the real world and at places of higher learning, such as colleges.

Various social projects are also striving to improve the low internet connectivity in schools. This way, students can access crucial information and research different fields of study. With a richness of educative material present online, all that is missing is the ability to access them. By providing wireless connections, students can access learning resources online more easily.

The bottom line

The traditional definition of a good quality of education in developing countries is based on the ability to master content. However, models that worked some years back may not be effective since the world is changing daily. If an improved approach is adopted, these countries will experience a real improvement in both the education and quality of life of the citizens.