Education is an element of life that is increasingly becoming an international must and a real human right. Poverty in Africa has however acted as an obstacle to many children from receiving even the basic primary education. Poverty, which normally develops to a specific way of life and culture, is an issue that is continuing to grow in Africa. The number of people in Africa living in poverty is continually increasing. The United Nations Millennium Summit in the year 2000 embraced eight Millennium Development Goals that it aimed to attain by 2015 (Engle, & Black, 2008). First priority was given to extreme poverty eradication as well as hunger and the achievement of universal primary education. Poverty has limited a large number of children and also adults to opportunities of attaining education even though education attainment is considered as one of the major mechanisms of eradicating poverty (Engle, & Black, 2008). Poverty in Africa is a persistence challenge and it is always associated with detrimental impacts on all family life aspects as well as the children’s outcomes (Philip & Rayhan, 2004). This paper therefore examines the causes of poverty in Africa, the manner in which poverty effects the educational outcomes of children and young people in Africa and the mechanisms that the communities and government should put in place to eradicate poverty in African and thus improve the education outcomes.
Causes of Poverty in Africa
Poverty in Africa has been as a result of