Free Education Argumentative Essay

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Introduction
I chose this topic because education is all around me. I am literally surrounded by illiteracy. From the moment I leave my door, to the moment I return, I am able to witness illiteracy in my society. Therefore, I could connect well to this particular topic in detail. So many children younger than me, of my age and also people elder to me do not have access to education. Even though 86.1% of the world is illiterate (CIA World Factbook), the other 14.9% have absolutely no access to education!
There are also numerous organizations in my community that provide free basic education to such illiterate children. So, this question arose in my mind, is free education really feasible - for the government or for the people? Free education …show more content…

With a population of 200.4 million, there are close to 65 million people who have not completed primary education [3]. Brazilian children are able to access free education at all three stages (primary, secondary and tertiary) of the education system. However, there are numerous social problems that affect free education in the Brazilian community. Annually, millions of students graduate from secondary schooling without being able to write essays, solve basic mathematics etc. Some schools also involve certain rules and regulations which prevent students from failing which leads to students moving forward without having basic knowledge of the previous year. This leads to lack of general knowledge, English reading and writing skills, arithmetic skills etc. contributing to the illiterate population. Other problems in Brazil include lack of teachers, increased crime rates, school abandonment, lack of proper infrastructure (science labs) and teenage pregnancies which have affected the literacy rates of Brazil [5]. Brazil’s expenditure on education has increased over the years, (refer to Appendix 1) however the chief problem lies in the large Brazilian population. Despite its large population, basic education requirements are lacking in Brazilian students. Even after large education investments, the distribution of education wealth remains unequal. In Sao Paulo, one of the wealthiest states with a large population, the …show more content…

Schooling for ages 5 to 14 is compulsory in Sri Lanka. The five stages of education in Sri Lanka include: primary, junior secondary, senior secondary, collegiate and tertiary [8]. Even though Sri Lanka claims a total adult literacy rate of 91.2% and a total youth literacy rate of 98.15% [9], it still faces challenges in its free education system. One of the main challenges Sri Lanka faces is tertiary education pressure. The tertiary enrolment ratio is only 6% out of which only 2% are full-time students (refer to Appendix 2). Also, there are only 13 universities with the capability to admit 13,000 students annually against the 75,000 students requiring admission each year. A large number of students seeking free education in state universities are being denied admission due to limited places available [10]. Talking about free education in general, children from financially stable families tend to stay longer in schools than children from poorer backgrounds (refer to Appendix 3). This is because of the other costs apart from tuition fees like uniforms, transport, stationery etc. [11]. Mr. Rohan Senarath, the Executive Director of Coalition for Education Development and former Save the Children in Sri Lanka programme specialist for education sums up the reasons for such problems in his article which includes: teacher biases/personal choices, struggle for lower income families, family mind-set of supporting

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