One of the greatest challenges facing third world countries today is the curse of illiteracy and ignorance. While the government and authorities in these countries are grappling with this problem to the extent possible, the current uncertain economic scenario is making things very difficult in successfully running long term primary and secondary education programs in the third world countries. These programs need to be continued for long periods of time and are very capital and people intensive. The infrastructure needs to be built for teaching children; the school building should have the basic requirements like desks, fans, chairs, table, black and white boards, libraries, computers, internet connections, playgrounds for children. Apart from these infrastructures a lot of recurring expenditure also needs to be arranged by way of teachers and administrative and non-administrative personnel.
While all these are indeed Herculean tasks calling for a massive efforts starting from the ground level, on the other hand we need to understand the socio economic reality. In spite of the best efforts by governments and various NGOs, many parents belonging to the weaker sections of society are in no mood to send there wards to school for education. They feel that sending their children for school would deprive them of one more earning member of the family. This is because most of these children come from agrarian backgrounds and hence spend a lot of time helping their parents.
However, things are starting to look up in many third world countries with active and aggressive participation of both the public and private enterprises. This is too big a job to be left to the government alone and as responsible citizens, big corporate houses should show more interest in this.
