National Identity And Commitment Of Educational Development

An education provides people not only with the academic skills required, but also the social skills such as having the self confidence and belief in ones self to achieve a fulfilling and happy life. It is every child’s human right to receive such an education from early years to higher, and therefore several stages in which they must travel for this to happen.

By the beginning of the second Millennium, many countries realized the need and necessity to cope up with the rest of the rapidly developing world. As they realized this necessity, they also realized that the key to growth and development is, indeed, education. As a result, many countries around the world entered the heated race of reforming their education systems hoping that this would ensure them a foothold in the modern world.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, illuminates the essential rights that all children have. According to the Convention, each child has the privilege of education, it is the state 's obligation to guarantee that essential education is free and necessary, to allow distinctive types of secondary training, including general and professional training and to make them open to each child and to make advanced education accessible (United Nations, 1990). But as indicated by UNICEF, an expected 93 million kids on the planet don 't get the chance to go to school, the majority whom are girls. A large part of these children are poor and their families can 't stand to send them to school. They should work to help their families survive. Others, for the most part, young girls don 't go to school since they need to help at home. However, without an education, children and families are forced to lead an existence in poverty (UNICEF, 2015).

This paper will identify the ethnic identifications within individuals. Ethnicity is part of everyone’s identity development. Individuals may have one ethnicity or multiple, depending on their current location, homelands, generations, religion, environment, language/dialect, physical appearance, and more. A cultural individual is considered ethnic either by being first, second, or third generation. According to Phinney (1989), there are four stages of ethnic identity development: diffuse, foreclosed, moratorium, and achieved. They describe when an individual explores or does not explore their own ethnicity, and accepting clarification and understanding of ethnicity. An individual can be placed within these stages throughout their developing lives. It is important to recognize these stages within an individual to better apprehend their identity and where they perceive their own identity in their position.

The common definition of public education in the U.S. is a system implemented to promise “equal education opportunities no matter race, religion or ability” (An American Imperative: Public Education). While all public schools are diverse in their own core values and principles, there is one underlying principle that makes a public school great - being supportive of their students. Furthermore, by following this principle, public education is paving the road to success for students. Although public education serves an irreplaceable role in society, it is not a right that is granted to everyone across the world. For instance, out of the 128 million school-aged children in Africa, an estimated amount of “17 million will never attend school,” (Fleet).

Barack Obama once said “The future must not belong to those who bully women. It must be shaped by girls who go to school and those who stand for a world where our daughters can live their dreams just like our sons.” This message is not only relevant in the United States. In fact, it has even stronger meaning in Africa. In Sub-Saharan Africa, more than 28 million girls are out of school (Camfed). It is important to raise awareness of the lack of education for girls in Africa because educated women are healthier, educated women can raise a country’s gross domestic product, and educated women can advocate for themselves.

The success of MENA countries clearly shows that investing in early childhood education is an effective and efficient method of improving literacy. Moreover, Hanemann (2006) found that increased funding on primary education resulting from UN Millennium Development Goals has increased global attendance and eliminated the gender gap.

Early childhood education lays the foundation for future success. Therefore, primary education is a basic right that every child should be entitled to. However, in sub-Saharan Africa, one in five children received a primary education in the past and the proportions have considerably increased now to 59%. But even with this considerable increase to children who receive a primary education, literacy rates haven’t improved due to the inadequate quality of education. Therefore, lack of an adequate primary education is a problem in sub-Saharan Africa because it causes low literacy rates that harm the overall welfare of those countries and it could be best solved with a better internal education system and some external monetary aid.

“UNICEF Pleads For African Children Educational Rights.” Africa News Service, 20 Sept. 1999, p. 1008260u3868. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Accessed 8 Feb. 2017. Print.

Approximately 75 million children around the world have no opportunity to attend primary school. Of the 75 million, most of them are girls due to tradition or parents that hold them back from attending ("Main Navigation"). Other factors that affect children from going to school is because of conflicts and wars that result in schools to be destroyed and families to flee the country. Lack of education is a growing crisis due to many factors in developing countries but it has the power pull a country out of poverty and make them economically stable and attract other countries to trade, therefore it should be seen as a priority. Developed countries are involved to help countries increase their education because every child should have the

Educational attainment in middle income countries is restrictive, for most citizens education beyond primary school is beyond their grasp. Although it is well established that one of the strongest predictors for a country’s economic growth is the education level of its population many middle income countries simply can not afford to make the necessary changes to their respective countries education systems. Education reform would require a monstrous amount of funding, with issues like infrastructure improvement, and financial market instability on these countries policy agendas, education reform isn’t the focus. (de Haan, 1996)

Education is considered as the critical software for development as it shapes the destiny for every society. Currently the initiative is driven by the Millennium Development Goals and the goals of Education for All. The MDG’s with direct reference to women education are Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education and Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women. This means that everybody in the society should be given a chance to attend school, women included (Anne Syomwene , 2015)

For years, the Ghanaian Ministry of Education and the Ghana Educational service have experienced successes and difficulties in raising educated people in a country that has just reached middle-income status. These institutions acknowledge that without proper planning of education, a functioning structure and effective knowledge and skill acquisition, the country will not develop with its own efforts and Ghana will be dependent on outside forces to manage its economy. One of the biggest issues that confronts Ghana however is that, due to high costs of education and high drop-out rates, there are still thousands of children who are not able to climb through the ladder of education to the tertiary level. The numbers that drop out after every major stage are alarming and most government policies on education have not been able to solve this. The highest rate of drop that is of most concern occurs between the transitions from Junior High School to Senior high school. For any country, this should be alarming. The reasons every child does not get into a Senior High school is mainly that they either cannot afford the school or they cannot get into the few competitive slots. This paper seeks to suggest why the government may be better off providing vouchers for students to go to private schools that will complement the already existing public schools.

Since independence in, Kenya has had its share of the struggle to make it possible for its population attains education for all. This was out of the realization that education of the population would help fight ills that faced the society, among them included; poverty, ignorance, and disease. In fact, the government treated education as a basic right for every Kenyan child. Education has ever since been regarded as a fundamental factor for human capital development. In response to this urge, government developed policy documents that sort to expand access to education for its citizens. It is internationally recognized that everyone has a right to education, as agreed upon at various international conferences. Kenya tried to

In the area of achieving self-reliance by African states particularly Tanzania, Nyerere developed an educational philosophy which could be approached under two main headings; Education for Self-reliance and Adult education. His interest in Self-reliance shares a great deal with Gandhi’s approach to ‘Basic Education’. There was a strong concern to counteract the colonialists’ assumptions and practices of the dominant, formal means of education, which he saw as enslaving and oriented towards ‘western’ interest and norms. It was designed to transmit the values of the colonizing power and to train individuals for the service of the colonial state. It induced attitudes of subservience, human inequality and individualism, and emphasized white-collar skills. The context of colonial education was largely alien and the entire system was organized by racial segregation. For Nyerere who was once a teacher himself, he believed that education had to work for the common good, foster co-operation and promote equality. He asserted that the school curriculum should go hand in hand with de-emphasizing the import of formal examinations which merely assesses a person’s ability to learn facts. He said it was necessary for African states to abandon examinations that are geared towards