Educatioin

School fees are one of the biggest barriers in the expansion of schooling in the poorest countries. This is particularly significant in countries where poverty imposes tough choices on families and households about how many children to send to school, which children to send to school, and how long they may attend. Two-thirds of the kids who don't go to school are girls. More than 70% of the out-of-school children are in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Of those who go to school, one-third drop out before they learn to read, write, and count. Over 15% of children in developing countries don't complete a course of primary education. In Sub-Saharan Africa, less than 60% of children complete a course of primary education. Nearly 1 billion adults in the world are illiterate. Women account for two thirds of all illiterate adults. Enrollment in tertiary education (enrolling in a university) in poor countries was less than 10% in 1997, compared to 57% in rich countries. Rich countries spend on average around $4,000.00 on a student each year, while developing countries spend around $40.00. In Sub-Saharan Africa, at least 40 million children are out of school - 22 million of them are girls. In South Asia, 36 million children are out of school - 22 million of them girls. In East Asia and the Pacific, there are 12 million children out of school - 6 million of them are girls. In the Arab States, there are 7.4 million children out of school - 4.5 million of them are girls. In Latin America, there are 2.5 million out of school with 1.2 million of them girls.
Benefits of Education
Educated mothers are 50% more likely to immunize their children than mothers with no schooling (Net Aid). It is a well known fact that the acquisition of literacy and numeracy, especially by women, has an impact upon fertility. More recently, it has become clear that the cognitive skills required to make informed choices about HIV/AIDS risk and behavior are strongly related to levels of education and literacy. (EFA Global Monitoring Report)
Increases Agricultural Productivity and Reduces Malnutrition
More productive farming due to increased female education accounts for 43% of the decline in malnutrition achieved between 1970 and 1995 (Net Aid). Failure to educate girls and women perpetuates needless hunger. Gains in women's education contributed most to reducing malnutrition between 1970 and 1995, playing a more important role than increased food availability.
Raises Productivity and Income
There is good evidence to suggest that the quality of education - as measured by test scores - has an influence upon the speed with which societies can become richer and the extent to which individuals can improve their own productivity and incomes. It is well established that the distribution of personal incomes in society is strongly related to the amount of education people have had.
Research shows high private returns to primary education, as long as it is measured in terms of attainment of basic skills and not years spent in school.
Taking into consideration the fact that any country’s future lies and depends on the quality of education we impact on the youths, MPYRAA has in the past years embarked on a violent campaign on the need for parents to send their children to school and create a favourable environment for them to live like educated citizens.
MPYRAA runs no educational institution for the time being but nonetheless it has used other measures to participate in this light in fostering education in our fatherland. MPYRAA stands tall as it has sponsored and is still sponsoring a good number of underprivileged children to school in mostly rural communities and especially for the girl child whose education in many rural areas is still a taboo and far from being on an average.
Besides these laudable gestures, MPYRAA gives financial support to some who for some reasons are not able to meet up with certain educational cost like registering for the common entrance exams, the GCE Ordinary and Advanced Levels just to name a few examples.
Books have been donated by MPYRAA to help some schools to better equip their libraries which is also aimed at buttressing the reading attitudes of youths. It is no longer a strange adage that “readers are leaders”.
Also, taking into consideration the emerging nature of Information Technology (IT) and the need for youths to enjoy the positive advantages thereof, MPYRAA hopes to partner with likeminded organizations and associations to bring cheap, fast and up-to-standard IT facilities in schools in mostly rural areas, places where the phrase “the world has become a global village” remains a myth.
As a long term project, MPYRAA hopes to create a long lasting impact in our country by setting up an educational complex comprising of three phases, which will eventually be the setting up of structures to contain a Nursery school, a Primary school and a Secondary school respectively. This will also be a very affordable venture which will be accessible to all and bring education to the grassroots.
MPYRAA also intends to create an inter-school network so as to expose other issues which are not present in other schools to the students. That will go a long way to break down the superstition that looms around some schools especially well-performing mission schools.
MPYRAA counts on its resources including its existing partners and interested national and international partners in achieving this lofty initiative so as to join hands with other likeminded groups plus the government of Cameroon to help our nation meet the Millennium Development Goals.