Breaking the Cycle: Exploring the Interplay of Poverty, Education, and Corruption

Poverty is having a low financial income to meet one's basic needs. Living in inhumane conditions and lacking means and resources to provide necessities such as food, clothing and shelter. Inability to maintain a healthy standard of living in terms of life. Poverty is the aspect of economic equality that is most obviously a source of societal concern. It is a deprivation to wellbeing, there's Absolute and Relative Poverty.

Lack of education plays a huge role in sustaining poverty. People in the rural areas are not learned and they have trouble voicing out their concerns through local government procedures. Uneducated people sometimes are lazy to think therefore making it hard for them to solve problems and innovate new ideas. Due to lack of education, social and economic development of rural areas becomes a challenge. Education in poor areas can help the members of the community in decision making, creating more opportunities for employment and income generating sources. Educational programs pertaining in local needs for the development of the society will reduce poverty and lead to equity of income, it has a huge role in helping the individuals to cross the hurdle of poverty.

Before giving people more opportunities to participate in society, besides reducing inequality education can safe guard against vulnerability and risk. Extreme poverty remains one of the most abstinate barriers to education, with children from the poorest households almost five times more likely to be out of school than those from households with a higher income. The correlation between poverty and education can manifest itself through a lack of trained teachers, inadequate learning materials. Children from rural areas have to travel great distances to attend class , all these things make it difficult for children living in rural areas

As stated by Divine word missionaries 'When barriers to education are eliminated children are setup to thrive in all areas of life'. Education, particularly girls education is one of the most powerful tools for creating economic growth, it decrease the likelihood of conflict, increases resilience and sets up future generations with wide reaching economic and social benefits.

Several studies conducted by UNICEF confirm that additional years of education have a significant influence on GDP per capita providing more education, knowledge and skills will increase an individuals employed outlook and productivity which in turn will increase the overall income and development of the country's workforce. This leads to more stable communities and a brighter future fir the next Generation.

Gujit and Shar stated that, 'Generally poverty cannot be reduced if economic growth does not occur'. As the economy grows, so do opportunities for employment and income growth. Stronger labour markets and higher income levels tend to help those families living in poverty move above the poverty threshold, Economic growth is the main channel through which globalization can affect poverty. The population living in poverty are more susceptible to malnourishment which affects child growth, Rural poor economy is largely reliant on Agriculture, fishing, forestry and related small scale industries and services. When economy is exclusive, depriving certain individuals the opportunity to create ideas and allow them to participate within trade sectors of their economy will leave them in poverty because of they can't participate in the market to sell their fish , produce any other related source of agriculture.

Sustained economic growth is promoting economic growth increases total income in society, creating more jobs and income in which could be redistributed. Economic growth has been a major factor in reducing the levels of Poverty which were seen in many South African rural areas. Unemployment is a major cause of economic inequality because unemployed people have little income, relying on state benefits. This can be stopped through both supply-side policies such as free training schemes for those who are structurally unemployed. Poverty and unemployment are often geographical problems, with depressed areas seeing higher levels of poverty could include government subsides for firms to set up in depressed areas also building better infrastructure in depressed areas can provide an economic stimulus to create new jobs.

As said by Forbes, The misuse of public office for privatepersonal gain, it includes Fraud, Nepotism and bribery. Poor people and economically strapped businesses have few economic alternatives and where serious corruption is the norm, they are more vulnerable to exploitation. Corruption is inherently a secretive transaction and thus difficult to observe and measure, it does not produce poverty but rather has direct consequences on economy, unemployment and governance factors that in turn produce poverty. Increased corruption reduces economic investments, creates inefficiencies by increasing the cost of doing business and increase income inequalities. Corruption erodes the institutional capacity of government to deliver quality public services and diverts public investments away from major public needs into monopoly projects. High rising of corruption increases income inequality and poverty, an increase in one's standard deviation in corruption increases the Gini coefficient of income inequality.

Corruption and poverty unfortunately go hand in hand threatening the lives of too many people. In many rural areas, people are forced to bribe inorder to get essential services like health and water. The effects of corruption are personal and they are devastating. Corruption leaves children without mothers, families without household and people without healthcare and food. We strongly believe that introducing a governance goal that can be tracked and that allows citizens to hold their governments to account is a prerequisite for ending poverty in all rural areas within the framework of a government goal, targets should be set for increasing the participation of people in decision making, making public spending and budgets more transparent and making law enforcers and public services answerable to ordinary people.