The report's summary measure of well-being -- gauged by life expectancy, literacy, school enrollment rates and per-capita income -- shows that South Africans are worse off today than they were when apartheid ended.
Literacy rates have improved steadily, particularly for females (currently 43%), but there remain gender disparities in literacy, school enrolment, and school dropout rates [ 12].
Brown (2006) argues that to achieve our earth restoration goals we must first meet a set of basic social goals that includes universal primary education, adult literacy, school lunch programs in the 44 poorest countries, assistance to preschool children and pregnant women in these countries, reproductive health and family planning, universal basic health care, and provision of condoms.
Mass literacy, schools, increased mobility of populations, and, more recently, the ever-growing role of mass communications all contribute to this tendency.
Oil-dependent nations do especially badly by their poor: infant survival, nutrition, life expectancy, literacy, schooling — all are worse in oil-producing countries.
The populations of southern, now richer states, such as Kerala (with high levels of literacy, schooling and good health care) or Tamil Nadu, are stabilising as middle-class families decide to have fewer children.
It is also well known that in various rankings of nations by life expectancy, child welfare, literacy, schooling, economic equality, standard of living and competitiveness, Denmark and Sweden stand in the first tier.
Taking a global perspective, our research explored the relationship of four variables (religiosity; science literacy; school-life expectancy; gross domestic product (GDP) per capita) to acceptance of evolution for 35 different countries.
This broad reflection is crucial, as there's abundant evidence that Muslim women rank below the national average when it comes to literacy, schooling and the workforce.
Read on to learn about Mumbai's peace committees, affirmative action in São Paulo, workshops on multiculturalism in Cairo, and literacy schools for women refugees in Nairobi -- then share your thoughts on URB.im.
And although a program called Improving Literacy Through School Libraries, which was introduced in 2001, helps schools acquire "up-to-date school-library media resources, including books," I couldn't uncover which books, if any, the schools bought.
