How Can Poverty Affect Education and Our Nation

Essays on poverty and education shed light on the interconnectedness between socioeconomic factors and educational outcomes, emphasizing the urgency of addressing systemic barriers, providing equitable opportunities, and fostering inclusive educational environments to break the cycle of poverty and promote social mobility.

According to data from the International Monetary Fund, Canada is the tenth largest economy in the world at $1.8 trillion. How can poverty affect our nation? And how many people are affected by this issue in Canada? Poverty is an important issue nowadays that is not only affecting Canada but many countries around the world, many people mislead the true meaning behind the word poverty but it is the state in which the person is not able to afford the minimum basic needs of life such as food, clothing, and shelter.

In 2017, 9.5% of the Canadian population lived under the poverty line , because of the income inequality that is associated with the premature death of 40,000 Canadian a year. There are three provinces in Canada that has the highest poverty rate which are Nunavut with around average of 29%, Manitoba about 20.

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7%, and British Columbia with 18.7% . Many people don’t know the fact that hunger/poverty is the number one cause of death in the world, killing more than HIV/ AIDS, Malaria, and tuberculosis and that 80% of the world population lives on less than $10 a day. Poverty does not cause death only but has a lot of biological, cognitive, and socio-emotional effects on the persons that is going to be discussed in details.

Poverty causes malnutrition to the person which is lack of proper nutrition, caused by not having enough to eat, or not eating enough of the right things, or being unable to use the food that one does eat.

Malnutrition is a health concern affecting many children, studies show that children who experience malnutrition, in their first two years of life have lower test scores, delayed enrolment, higher absenteeism, and more class repetition. Also, they do not reach their optimum size as adults, because their brains are affected by the results of in lower IQS, the main effects of malnutrition that occur to any person regarding their age is increased vulnerability to diseases, developmental delays, stunted growth, and blindness. The effects does not stop here but there is socio-emotional effects to which are a lack of interest in the environment, inadequate emotional development by school age. Lastly, do you know that Malnutrition is an underlying cause of the death of $2.6 million children each year.

Poverty rely heavily on agriculture. If a country cannot produce enough based on conditions, individuals enter the cycle of poverty and it is difficult to escape, environmental damage increases the impacts of floods and other environmental catastrophes. The causes of harmful environment that lead to poverty is Climate, Water Contamination, Geological factors. To begin with, air pollution is one of the reasons that creates harmful environment and lead to poverty, air pollution is dangerous and bring a lot of diseases such as asthma, respiratory illness, lung cancer etc to the families, and individuals. Secondly, water is the main source in life and it is the reason that humans, plants, and animals are alive. It is impossible for anyone to survive without it this is why water contamination is harmful. Contaminated water results in poor health and impact individuals around them, if a person continues to drink impure water there is a lot of diseases that occur to the person like gastrointestinal problems,diarrhea, nausea, dehydration, and most important death. Thirdly, the Geological factors such as soil erosion, land degradation and deforestation lead to decline in food production, and shortage of wood for fuel that contribute to inflation. Lastly, these all factors cause poverty because when the society is poor that means there is no good medical system that can help those people who are affected by air pollution, water contamination , and the geological factors.

Poverty and Education: the Main Problem for Children

Poverty is the number one enemy of education. Also, children from lower income families are more likely than students from wealthier backgrounds to have lower test scores, and are at higher risk of dropping out of school.

Children are the most affected by this issue because poverty reduces child readiness for school because it leads to poor physical health and motor skills, diminishes a child’s ability to concentrate and remember information, and reduces attentiveness curiosity, and motivation. These children experience reduced motivation to learn, lower achievement, less participation in extracurricular activities, and interrupted school attendance. Due to the readiness gap poor children feel alienated from society, suffer insecurities because of their socio-economic status, fear the consequences of their poverty, and endure feelings of powerlessness.

Poverty increases the chances of poor health. Health problem is a state in which a person is unable to function normally and without pain. Poverty increases the chances of health problems because of poor nutrition, overcrowding, and lack of clean water. And the diseases that results because of health problems are HIV, diarrhoea, tuberculosis, malaria, respiratory diseases, etc. A really interesting fact that people do not know is that Diarrhoea, pueumonia and malaria account for nearly half of all child deaths globally. “Also, poor housing, neighborhood, and indoor air quality affects health because residential crowding have been linked both with physical illness such as tuberculosis and with psychological distress among both adults and children. Substandard housing such as water leaks, poor ventilation, dirty carpets can lead to an increase in mold, mites, and other allergens associated with poor health. Extreme low and high temperatures have been associated with increased mortality.”

People living in poverty are twice as likely to be depressed. Children who grow up in poverty are more likely to have an inability to manage their tempers or calm themselves down causes the largest gap between fortunate and less fortunate children. Depression is a common and serious illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think, and how you act and it is dangerous because it is a major cause for sucide. If a child gets neglected it can lead to social delays, academic delays, depression which can manifest as problem behavior, and this makes the child have loss of pleasure in virtually all activities, feelings of worthlessness and self-blame or exaggerated feelings of guilt. While, parents who are under economic distress have an increased risk of addiction to drugs and alcohol, divorce, physical abuse and child neglect. These all factors causes depression which may get passed to their children that later cause low- self esteem, anxiety, and other socio-emotional problems.