Education and school

Severino Jovino de Lima learns literacy skills at makeshift classes held at his workplace [Marcella Haddad]

Taking children, particularly girls, out of school in order to work is one way poor families try to cope with financial hardship. Even if there are no school fees, many struggle to afford the necessary pencils, paper, shoes and clothes

This may help make ends meet in the short term, but the cost is huge in the long term. Even when working children manage to attend school, they will certainly attend less regularly and do less well than their peers.

In rich countries, people have an average of ten years of schooling; in developing countries the average is four. Poor transport and long distances to school make it even more difficult to attend.

Without the chance of a full education, children do not get the qualifications they need for decent jobs, which perpetuates the cycle of poverty into the next generation and beyond.

Severino did not learn to read and write until he was an adult, thanks to a group of volunteers who hold classes at building sites to give basic education to construction workers in the Paraíba area of Brazil.

He says: “As a boy, I got up early every day to work in the fields under a hot sun. I didn’t have the energy to learn. This has changed my life. I want my son to go to school, because I want him to study. Maybe he will be a doctor one day.”

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