For the purpose of our answer we look at South African education. Education will have a positive impact on the development of South Africa as it will alleviate most of the issues that slows down development in our country. The above statement refers to: The biggest issues that slow down the development of education in South Africa are high rate of people infected/affected by HIV and Aids, poverty and unemployment. If we are able to achieve universal education there will be a decrease in the above problems. If everyone attends primary school they will acquire basic information about the HIV and Aids virus and will,therefore, protect themselves and make wise decision concerning HIV/AIDS thus decreasing the increasing number of people infected by HIV and AIDS in our country.

 Further more education will do the following:  Decrease the unemployment rate  Increase our literacy rate  Decrease poverty  Decrease malnutrition in children: this is because many of our schools provide food for learners.

 According to research done by the South African Education and Adolescent Development, education will have a more larger impact on girls than boys the reason being the gender approach to learning will help empower girls and challenge gender-discrimination.

 The state has made primary education compulsory, this has been successful.  State owned schools have the following models: Free transport; this has been successful in many rural areas where schools are far from villages. Feeding schemes Free schooling : about children get access to this, it is a system where by children do not pay school fees. Free stationary and school uniforms, this has made schooling easy and affordable for many children however not everyone has access to this. Monitoring of learner attendance, this has not been successful.  Girls’ education is one of the main achievements of the post-apartheid education system, with girls and boys enrolling in school in almost equal numbers.

 Many children experience a broken journey through school, interrupted by irregular attendance, absent teachers, teenage pregnancy and school-related abuse and violence. South Africa’s high levels of poverty continue to deny thousands of children access to quality education. Around 27 per cent of public schools do not have running water, 78 per cent are without libraries and 78 per cent do not have computers. There is limited provision for preschool and special education.

 As research shows, cultural barriers are seen in both South Africa and Africa as a whole. Women are seen as people who are supposed to perform domestic tasks( house work) but this occurs mostly in the rural areas because most rural areas have not adapted to the 21st Century way of thinking. Many women or girls are expected to be house wives and undergo marriage at an early age. The number of males from rural areas outnumber the number of females in universities from rural areas.

 In most cases women are thought to have an inferior mental and intellectual capacity and that they cannot handle subjects such as Physics, Accounting or Mathematics. However, in South Africa this is changing because most female students are starting to take these subjects and are being empowered in this way.  In South Africa most of the above mentioned cultural barriers are being dealt with, with the various organisations that empower and offer opportunities to bring success to women.  The clip below highlights Cultural Barriers of education as a whole Africa The Facts About Girls' Education

 The government needs to come up with a system whereby they can monitor the spending of the money allocated to the department of education. ( This statement was backed up by National Planning Minister Trevor Manuel: ) We say this this because large amounts of money (can be seen in our national budget) is given to the department yet many children receive poor education. An example of this can be seen by reading the article on the link provided. education-at-risk-because-of-poor-governance education-at-risk-because-of-poor-governance The Department of Education is planning to monitor the school attendance since many kids register for school but are never present at times.

  ca_MDG_midterm.pdf ca_MDG_midterm.pdf    Primary Sources  Teachers