Como se da la Equity in Education

EQUALITY IN EDUCATION

Everyone needs and deserves a good education, an education they can rely on, a quality education, an education that can change lives. No matter where you came from or how good or bad is your economic status, their shouldn’t be any inequality in terms of education but sadly there is.

High vulnerability schools often suffer from limited resources, insufficient materials, higher student-to-teacher ratios, lower teacher salaries and a almost no chance of employing a “good” teacher, they receive less funding and even sometimes they have inoperative rest rooms. While other children have a better education and eventually a lot more opportuneties just because they were born in a family who could afford a better education.

A good education shouldn’t be something that only the upper class can have access to, at least for the basic education, as William Thompson once said “our position in the social hierarchy affects our health, happines,knowledge and even how long we will live, IT DEFINES US”.  It shouldn’t define us, it shouldn’t define our education, it shouldn’t define our values, money shouldn’t define us.

If you ask me, education is fundamental, a pillar in life, because it gives you facts, the power to create your own opinions, overall thinking skills and that gives you freedom, freedom to chose and to think.

By raising the level of education for those who suffer from poverty or simply those who can’t afford private schools a lot will change.  But you may ask yourself “What can education actually change?”, well it can change; income inequality, improve the resource manegment , improve health, it can close the gender gap that prohibited education for woman has created, minimizes malnutrition and causes less abortions. To back up this last point, in 1996 a study in Botswana concluded that for every additional year children spend in school, the youth are less likely to get unwanted pregnancy by a 12% every year. Education can prevent you from being exploited and fooled because it is easier to take advantage of people who are innocent and not well educated. And if we eventually want to achieve equal opportunities for everyone, education is what we require. It can end with the existing differences between different social classes and genders.

For example  Australia, USA and Japan are one of the few countries with very high education rates. These countries are extremely prosperous and the people have a high per capita income.  On the other hand, in underdeveloped and developing countries, where the education rate is not as high, a number of people are still living below the poverty line. Education is vital for economic growth.

In Chile, for over thirty years we have been implementing reforms and policies for improving education efficiency, quality and equity. Over the past decade there have been positive  changes in the distribution of learning achievements  according to student socioeconomic level or, in other words, educational equity. But the magnitude of these changes varies according to grade level and subject, so it hasn’t been a complete progress in the quality of education in every subject.

Education equals hope, education equals power, education equals succes, education equals the solution. We can’t wait until the goverment fixes all this problems, this change have to start from us. How? we can make change by donating school supplies, it can be books, pens everything, fix classroooms, join organizations that help the cause, volunteer your time, etc. Everything that gets us one step closer to education equality is valuable.

I believe that knowledge shouldn’t have a price tag, I believe that everyone should have an opportunity, that everyone has a quality education. Education from one generation rolls over to the next, therefore improving education could possibly end a cycle that it’s been going on for years.

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