Very true, in our country india, especially tamilnadu shows good increase in educational % and especially women rise in education shows the empowerment of women in different fields and entering to jobs with confidence, economic back up give extra status and strength to them to lead an independent life.

backward communities had come with good results in education as well as in job due to reservation system in education as well as in jobs. so no doubt education and poverty reduction had a positive relationship

Education is indeed and effectually the best way of the poor to escape not only poverty but also to kill illiteracy and ignorance and unawareness of individual rights and responsibilities and to outflow all forms of social discrimination, not only in India and Africa but worldwide.

Education allows later the possibility of taking part at the political life and to be part of it and to know how to defend and protect the rights of the citizens who are marginalized, disregarded and unnoticed from the taker of the decisions makers.

Concerning morocco, education is very important for women, especially at the countryside. I am a president of the association of the friends of voluntary work for the human development at Sidi Allal Bahraoui in morocco and during the last sechs months I organized for the first time a course for more than 50 women between 18 and 60 years who have never been at a school. Now they are very happy, because they can read Arabic and they will continue to learn officially by us because we will be logistically helped from the ministry of education (I hope it). We have a program too for the girls and some boys living at the countryside of Sidi Allal Bahraoui who couldn’t follow their studies because of the long way till the city: We will try to prepare with them the Baccalaureate as a free candidates and the association is looking now for national and international institutions and organizations who would like to help us, in order to teach this people who are victims of their geographical, social and political structures.

Your question dear Irene is very interessting.

Education has the power to break the poverty cycle. The Alliance of Women Philanthropists just awarded us a grant to help impoverished minority women here in Memphis, TN, to enter our Medical Laboratory Science Program. It pays for their books, their protective lab wear and will pay their National Registry Board exam fee.

We call it "Pathway to Professionalism" and believe that their B.S. degrees will be of enormous benefit to them throughout their lives. They will be the professionals who do all diagnostic work on clinical specimens (blood, CSF, urine, etc.) required to establish diagnoses and determine treatment. Education IS power!

Congratulations, Rachida! That's a wonderful accomplishment.

I agree with you all that education is a tool to break the cycle of poverty. However, education needs of high quality. For example, I work for an institution that does not hand pick its students. I observe that many adult students rely on basic learning skills. These poor skills have an impact on their scores when they take international tests. To sum up, I believe that education does play a role, but governments and instituions in general need to raise the quality of teachers, professors, and everybody involved in education. .

I think that's the point. Education is the key to be free from bondage of ignorance but as a key to getting the best of life may be an insufficient tool. In our country for example there are engineers, doctors and even lawyers who are working abroad as ordinary laborers only. Meaning the education they got is not sufficient to perform the kind of work expected of them. Or those educated for this kind of work is not working based on its line. But of course there is the issue of "i-dont-care" attitude for as long as the salary is high.

I agree with Mr Lobo. Education necessitates effective learning and quality transmission of Knowledge, attitudes and Skills.

I agree Elmer, but we teachers should definitely think of the benefits of making a difference among our students. We need to give our best by worrying about them and about their learning.

As several of you have pointed out, QUALITY in education is extremely important. We sometimes get students from institutions that are known for grade inflation. This is really cheating the students who are consumers of an inferior product. When they reach us, they are incensed because they did not make an A or B on an assignment and sometimes think we are being very unfair. We train health care professionals and cannot graduate people who would be a danger to the public. Thank goodness we require a license issued both by the State of Tennessee and the National Board exams to ultimately determine who works in this state or not. Only 11 states require both a national and a state license for Medical Laboratory Scientists. Remember, these are the people who are responsible for providing physicians with data so that diagnoses can be made. So, quality is a life-saver.

Indeed quality education is the key and a standard must overrule to determine quality of education. However, I think this is happening anywhere in the world that majority flunk in standard examinations. So does it mean that they did not get the quality education that they deserve? Then, it brings me to thinking that if Education is the cure to poverty and a way to progress, then we, educators, should be blamed for its failure to really eradicate poverty.

Education is one of the ways to attain social mobility or a higher social-economic status. That does not equate to getting rich, although in some cases, it may. In my neighborhood (Banting, Malaysia), I see the ones who get rich are the enterprising people who usually go into business.

At the same time, some very highly educated people do not make as much money because they are not in business. They are professionals who work and get a salary that does not qualify them as rich. But they have sufficient and they are not poor either.

So it is how we evaluate things. To have a good quality of life does not mean we have to be rich. To have sufficient money for our needs and to be contented with our quality of life is true wealth.

I think that education contributes to that good quality of life more than money can:)

Maybe what has been said about grade inflating (Linda Pfifer) and Flunking standard examinations (Elmer Irene) indicates that there is a problem with the processes or structures of education. Maybe we need an education system that is based on progress and is regardless of time. By that I mean instead of a 5 year term for secondary school or 3 years for a Bachelor degree, we construct continuous pathways through secondary school and universities that students who show persistence can move through. The main point of this change is that there is no sense of pass or fail just a measure of where a student is on the journey through the requirements of the course. In a nutshell, a course is divided into cognitive segments through which a student moves at the pace suitable for them. Their position in the course is measured similarly to current methods, however they do not pass or fail but are allocated a position from which they can seek to progress in their next study period.

I have used this system in a fairly limited closed course over 3 years and found that it made a significant difference to the students (and to my perception of the students). They were adolescents and remained engaged far more than if they had been assessed and graded in a way that implied pass or fail. They moved through a 6 point scale from wherever they were at the start of the 3 year course. At the end there were some who could be defined as 'failed' but the majority persisted in their studies until they had passed, albeit at different finish levels (just like normal results only better because the students persisted)

I refer you to my article (link below) if you are interested. It describes the results of an action research project in a secondary school.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241696820_Philosophy_-_Bremer_Action_research_Story?ev=prf_pub

Article Philosophy - Bremer Action research Story

I share the same point of you, dear Irene, concerning the necessity of overruling a standard to determinate the quality of education. Nevertheless, the different educational politic systems worldwide, especially in Africa, are most of the time based on quantitative and not qualitative education. The educators are usually faced up to many units of theoretical modules and a few or mostly none practical units which must be taught during a set period and date, the examinations must be done; such a quantitative educational system doesn´t allow unfortunately the educator to think about offering quality in teaching. Actually we have students and educator too in the Arab countries who criticize openly their own educational system; concerning morocco, our students want to break up with the exams educational system of “bidaatouna ruddat ilayna”, which means “we want you to give us our merchandise back”. Many educators at the secondary school and at the university too are still advising their students to “give them back the merchandise they have received from them”, each time the students whisper that the program is so overflowing of complex theoretical data and that the time they have got isn’t appropriate for understanding everything. Result: The students are obliged to listen, to write down what they hear and to consume the education they receive on this traditional damaging way…Subsequently, the students MEMORIZE BY HEART on the account of the quality.

In my country too, Mirianda, many very highly educated people must try to subsist with their meager and inadequate salary and cannot make money with their grades or positions, they are not really poor, but they cannot usually offer themselves and their family more than the necessary needs and if they want or MUST give them other things, the have to request official bank financial help. They possess a house, a car, family (children) and perhaps domestic animal(s), but mostly with the using of bank financial service. However their quality of life is higher as the quality of life of the rich people because of their way of thinking, of seeing life, of defining prosperity, contentment and of evaluating their education.

Unfortunately we see too in my country and perhaps in other countries that education is on the way to be a trade and that educator are making a lot of money with education through the offer of payable master studies which are authorized from the ministries of higher education…the discussion about the quality of such studies is very attention-grabbing, but I let actually it for the concerned educational team.

For me, dear Linda, it´s the beginning of a long but very thought-provoking and interesting way. Such people need us: The uncomplicated education we try to give them was given to us, but in other sophisticated circumstances; my father used to tell me that, I must always remember that “it´s never too late”. It doesn´t matter when we begin something, and how we settle it and when we can achieve it, because the most important thing is to want to do it, to believe in it and in one´s abilities, to set goals and to follow them…without getting tired, without looking behind us, without paying attention to what can reduce our energy and deviate us from our goal…

There are many very thoughtful and well-considered comments in this discussion.

We as teachers must live up to our obligation to present quality information. Since I teach in the higher education sector, I am often dismayed by the lack of student's abilities to spell and write grammatical sentences. I sometimes have B.S. Srs. who struggle to write a literate sentence. Something is going badly wrong in grade school. What ever happened to book reports and spelling assignments?

I think being educated is one way out of poverty. Suppose many were not educated, so to speak, i believe that more people would be in poverty.

Below is a reference that gives 2012 earnings and unemployment rate by educational attainment in the US, It is self explanatory.

http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm

Conclusion: EDUCATION PAYS.

This is the first time that I saw a concrete data about the benefit of education related to income. Yes indeed there is no argument about it especially if you are in a country where employment abounds (and in which the main requirement is educational qualification). I can speak of myself also that had I not been educated like this, I could have not enjoyed the benefits that I am getting now. But I know several colleagues who have already spent 20-30 years working and yet they remain in hand-to-mouth existence. Meaning they are working so as to have food in the table.

I am also doing a study right now about the factors of unemployment of university graduates in our locality. I have initially came across with pedicab drivers and surprisingly, some of them are college degree holders. Despite their educational qualification they still cannot find employment in their area of discipline.

That is one reason, more importantly there is a lack of parental interest and involvement, and the will to succeed.

My friends in RG say Education is the solution. Poverty is caused by lack of resources and even if there are aids if not sustained, it cannot really solve the problems of poverty. Education can encourage action, change of attitude, can lift spirit of will and self-reliance. For hunger and work inefficiency, science and technology can help through education. Our leaders should invest more in education to alleviate poverty.

http://www.globalissues.org/issue/2/causes-of-poverty

Is Education really the way of the poor to escape poverty? Absolutely yes under conditions..........

Education is an instrument towards quality life of individual and economic growth of the country. However it depends on the quality of education, relevance to labor market, legislative support, and the knowledge, skills, and attitude of the individual. Education and poverty relationship is multifactorial. Nature and concepts of poverty and education come into play and should be investigated.

Poverty will always remain in living societies. However, I believe education can play a great role in diminishing it, because i think that education/good quality of education is the right which can open any door of development.  Although we can see some college graduate have gone without jobs, but when they find a job can help themselves with jobs; people with no education might find a job but their income is very low. So if we have a society with more educated people, poverty can be alleviated.