A Child's Essay About Education

Everyone has the right to an education. Without an education, we can get nowhere in life. We need an education in order to survive in life.

Everyday we go to school, most of us whining about the amount of homework we have, or how our teachers and classes are boring, or that we are stuck in a double period class. But what does that matter? We have the chance to go to school yet we still continue to protest! Why are we so ungrateful? Children in less developed countries dream of the fabulous education we are getting and yet we complain at how much we're learning!

In some places in the world, children are suffering because they don't have an education. Some children who don't go to school are forced to work hard-labour jobs so that they can support their families. They become child labourers. Without a basic education, children are subject to a life filled with poverty and hunger, labour in agriculture or in an industry (i.e. factories, domestic labour), or sexual exploitation. In the year 2000, 860 million adults were illiterate, according to the United Nations. Also, 130 million children do not attend school, most of whom are females.

We are extremely privileged to have the opportunity to go to school. But school is not a privilege.

It's a right.

Alexis McGivern, 11, Canada, La Chataigneraie, Geneva, Switzerland