Throughout the world, educational attainment is a path out of poverty. Educated individuals can secure jobs like by using their knowledge and skills to open their own business and design anime clothing to be sold.
If you’re not the business-minded-type-of person, you can apply for a job and earn higher wages, and buy homes, cars, and other assets that enable them to support their families. Access to a quality school education can also enable children to break the cycle of poverty and be less susceptible to economic fluctuations.
For many countries, however, the cost of higher education is a stumbling block to social mobility. To address the needs of a growing population and the demands of a digital age, the world’s poorest nations should implement free education programs.
What is Free Education?
Free education, also known as free university education, is education that is provided without cost to the user. It is distinct from subsidized education, which is provided at significantly reduced cost to the user. While the concept of free education is appealing to many, it is rarely achieved at the institutional level because of the costs involved in providing it.
Free education refers to education provided without price and not as a service offered by an institution. It could be a public education, a community education program, or possibly an alternative education program.
A Lifesaver for the Developing World
In the global south, population growth and economic development have led to an increase in the number of students in higher education. The number of students per teacher has also increased, and educational facilities are often inadequate. While developed countries have experienced a significant reduction in the number of students per teacher, the opposite has been true in many developing countries.
The rise of student-to-teacher ratios in the developing world has been attributed to rising enrollment rates and the pressure to close the output gap in a short time. This has resulted in higher dropout rates, increased workloads for academics, and a decrease in the quality of education for students.
A Lifesaver for the Rich World
If the developing world is struggling with too many students per teacher, the developed world is facing the opposite problem. The average student-to-teacher ratio in the developed world is just over 10. With a global literacy rate of 89%, this is already a problem.