Access of Quality Education: The End Poverty Cycle - Research Paper Example

Download file to see previous pages The debates about poverty and its consequences are getting increasing attention from the authorities, law regulators, politicians, social welfare organizations, policymakers and the public at large. The reasons behind such importance given to the issues of poverty are the unhealthy, inconsistent and unwelcoming consequences of poverty. These consequences affect all areas from the social, psychological, mental and physical health to access quality food, shelter and other basic necessities for people’s lives. Researchers have long been struggling to find out the factors which may help in the reduction of the poverty levels prevailing in the US. This paper aims to analyze education as a factor which may impact poverty levels significantly. The paper, hence, provides a discussion on access to Education in the US as the most important factor needed to end the cycle of poverty for children. It is no longer a mystery that education forms the basis of good quality life and access to high level education, consistent income, access to health, accommodation and overall improvement in the standards of living. The public of United States is of the opinion that access to education is the right of all citizens and it helps in curbing the increasing problems of poverty and inequalities of the society. Their expectations on the access of high quality education to all the citizens may or may not be answered by the government officials due to inadequacy of resources or the balance between advantages and disadvantages that investments in education quality and its availability may bring in. In a democratic society like America, it is highly important to address and resolve issues which are affecting the life expectancy and quality of people’s lives in order to provide equal opportunities of development and growth. Since education is an element which directly affects the lives of the people and in turn affects the society, it has become important for the governmental authorities to take appropriate action in order to address this issue more clearly. The costs related to educational interventions are high. Firstly, introduction of low-cost or free educational interventions would increase the demand of educational resources and space. This increase in demand would call for an active plan to boost up the supply of educational facilities. This alone requires a heavy investment to fulfill the needs of American citizens who could not afford education due to scarce resources and lack of educational facilities available. In order to meet the demands of new students, there will be an additional requirement of teachers to appropriately meet the expectations of the people. The increase in demand of teachers would also require investment in order to increase the salaries or higher new staff to aid the learning process. The resources including learning materials, books, stationary and other things form a considerable part of investment required by such interventions. These costs related to the promotional interventions for education require closer attention to understand the economic consequences on the U.S. The administrative facilities for the additional educational services would also form a major investment area (Sykes et al., 2009 pp. 196-205). All these costs related to the interventions which may be proposed will need to be funded by governmental funds. The opportunity cost of these funds to be used in the educational interventions may be an investment in any other government project like setting up an industry or crime reduction strategies or any other public issue intervention. The estimates reveal that approximately half a trillion dollars are yearly spent on social and economic cost related to child poverty (Center for American Progress, 2007).  ...Download file to see next pagesRead More